04-05042013
This post is a continuation to:
Father
This point has been coming up more and
more lately and so I will deal with it first. I have a tendency (as
do many others) to prepare for situations I am unsure of by planning
them out in my mind. I may for example map out possible outcomes and
their probabilities, think of different ways to say things and how
different words/phrases/tones affect how my message is heard,
calculate best possible ways to begin a conversation, practice
“lines” in my mind (or out loud even) – and I have done this to
such an extent that I have become really resistant to act on my
initial impulse to do something. When I get an impulse to do
something – for example bring up a topic of discussion or hug
another – I immediately doubt my impulse by thinking “is that a
good idea?” and freeze myself. Then I assess the situation through
all kinds of assumptions: who I believe the other person to be, how I
assume them to perceive me, what I guess their reactions might be,
what I perceive to be “proper” in the context of the situation –
and my automated responses and reactions to the other, which are also
guesses as well as planning ahead, because when I perceive myself to
probably act a certain way and believe it I am likely to act just so
unless I stop being on auto-pilot.
There are environments where my
resistance is lowered or non-existent. Theatre is such a safe place
for me as it encourages self-expression in a closed circle of trusted
people, and I am glad to have had a supportive environment like that
when I grew up because the rest of my social environment was not as
supportive or at least not as safe as it was. With certain people and
places related to theatre I am really comfortable, “at home”, and
allow myself to express myself without all the filters that are
activated in “less safe” environments.
So as I can deduct from my experience,
the reason for my resistance to act on my initial impulse is because
I react with fear to the situation at hand. This may be because a) my
stance within the situation is already fearful (i.e. I am in the
presence of someone whom I perceive to be “scary”), and/or b) I
react with fear to a trigger within the situation and become fearful
within the moment (a person says something which I associate with a
negative memory and access the past fear), and/or c) I react to my
impulse with fear (I get an impulse to dance and judge myself because
I perceive dancing to be a “waste of time”).
An example of this is a situation with
a friend with whom I discuss about very serious and difficult matters
which I/we make even more difficult by not directly addressing our
relationship and the underlying friction that has been there for a
long time already. There are things I am bothered by but which I stop
myself from bringing up because I fear its possible consequences.
This also spreads out on all impulses regarding this person: I freeze
to assess all topics of discussion, not just the actual issue,
because I fear that talking to this person at all might lead to a
discussion on the actual issue. Here I have to deal with the fear
itself, but also with the communication pattern of planning
everything – I cannot wait and postpone the discussion by thinking
“I have to be ready for it” - I've just got to do it. No more
preparation. Today I actually managed to stop myself from acting upon
this point: I had an impulse to bring up a topic of conversation, I
froze, I doubted, “is this such a good idea” - but then I
realized what I was doing and stopped the pattern. I breathed for a
while, realized that I was accessing the same old pattern, let it go,
returned to being empty and silent – and two seconds later the
impulse came again and this time I seized it immediately and acted
upon it. It was cool to see this can be done.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to doubt myself and my inner movements and thus
plan out words, phrases, tones, gestures and motions with which I
perceive and believe the situation to be most likely to work out
according to my wishes (avoiding what I fear).
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not trust myself to handle unplanned
situations.
[Note: with “inner movements” or
“initial impulse” I now mean that movement within myself which
tells me to move without a thought as words or images, such as
“hmm, I wonder if eating ice cream would be a good idea, yes, I
think I'll have an ice cream” or having an image of ice cream come
up in my mind which then evokes desire. What I'm talking about is
that “inspiration” that is pure movement with no consciousness
involved, such as when I remember something I wanted to ask a friend
(memory is a physical function in the brain) or hear music and “feel
like dancing” (want to move according to the rhythm).]
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to stop myself from acting upon my initial impulse
by “pulling back” both physically and mentally when/as I react to
the situation with fear, refusing to stand within and as the impulse
and to acknowledge the impulse as myself, as my self-expression.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that the source of the impulses I
“receive” to move myself to act is in fact myself, the very self
I am beyond my consciousness – and I forgive myself that I have
accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I doubt, reject
and and suppress these impulses I actually erode my very self and
push myself further from myself.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to see these impulses as “less than” / “not
worthy” as I have refused to embrace them, here building a
foundation of self-doubt, self-belittlement and self-judgement.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear that who I am as these impulses is “not
enough” to “succeed” in the situation at hand because I have
perceived myself to “always fail” when I follow these impulses –
not realizing that this fear is based on childhood experiences where
I was bullied and judged by other children for my unrestrained
self-expression, which I see is not a valid experience to base any
fears on because children are just as messed up as their parents are
and their tendency to bully is thus not “human nature” but a sign
of a major malfunction in society.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to take my experiences of being bullied personally
as I have not seen, realized and understood that the behavior of the
other children was not (only) a manifestation of who I was then but
(also) a manifestation of who they were and what our world was/is.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to blame myself for my experiences of being
bullied as I have believed the accusations and judgements of the
other children that my self-expression was “wrong”, carrying this
misconception within me until the present moment where my first
reaction is still to look for flaws in myself when another reacts (or
to prevent reactions by “fixing my flaws” before an interaction
and “playing it safe”), not realizing that the reactions of
others are their reactions which they are responsible for, not me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to habitualize myself to plan things in my mind
constantly “just in case” even when there is no immediate fear
present.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to habitualize myself to act upon the survival
mechanisms I learned as a child in the hostile environment of school
where a bunch of messed up kids are put together with no proper adult
support – not realizing that I am no longer in school, that life is
not school and that I am no longer the same undeveloped being I was
as a child but a fully grown adult who no longer just needs to
survive but can actually affect how one's life is lived.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to justify planning and preparing for interaction
within my mind by believing that this is the only way to receive
acceptance, not realizing that when and as I act based on plans and
follow a ready route I do not actually live within the moment by
being open to all possibilities present, maintaining my ability to
change my direction within a single breath if I so decide.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to perceive social interaction to be a mine field
which I need to find a safe route in to survive, not realizing that
social interaction is not negative nor is it positive – it's simply
the physical reality and Life with physical beings coming across each
other in limited space – and that this negative value has in fact
been set by me and is not actually real.
As I now see, realize and understand
that the reactions of other human beings are not in fact caused by me
even though I may serve as a trigger to another – I commit myself
to stop myself when and as I react to another's reaction with fear.
This also applies to imagined reactions where I see a “worst-case
scenario” of another's negative reaction. When and as I stop myself
from acting upon my initial impulse by thinking “what if [something
happens]” - this thought not necessarily appearing as words or
images but as a physical movement of “pulling back” and shrinking
– I stop, I breathe and I realize that this worst-case scenario has
not in fact happened and may not happen at all, and that even if it
would happen it would be more about the other person than myself (if
my starting point is clear). I realize I am afraid because of
childhood experiences which are no longer here and that I am acting
upon habits and survival mechanisms that served their purpose in
school but are now dysfunctional. I then stabilize myself in breath,
ground myself into my body as a whole and breathe the energy out –
and if the energy doesn't fade with breathing, I return to
investigating the point. I then return to what I was doing, re-assess
the initial impulse and act upon it if necessary/possible.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to adopt the survival mechanism of planning ahead
and thus appearing certain by watching my father.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not trust other people to accept my
self-expression when it is unplanned and thus create a need to plan
and prepare for interaction with others so that I would be accepted /
not rejected.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that planned/preconceived
expression is not really honest self-expression at all, unless there
is a practical reason for the planning instead of fear being the
motivator.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear that if I do not succeed within
interaction with other people I will not be accepted and will instead
be rejected and bullied.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to make myself helpless in front of rejection and
bullying as I have taken them personally as I have not had a solid
foundation of self-trust and self-worth.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to try to appear certain through this survival
mechanism of planning as an attempt to mend my insecurity which I
realized to be one reason why I was so easily bullied.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that I do not need to appear
certain for an interaction to be successful.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to not realize that what is required for an
interaction to be genuine and honest (my new definition of
“successful”) is that I am who I am without any additional
personalities/characters and that who I am is not always certain or
at least not my definition of “certain”.
When and as I notice myself planning
and/or preparing for something, I stop, I breathe and I assess within
and as self-honesty whether the planning holds any practical value or
not. If it does, I continue with the planning as much as is necessary
and possibly stop doing other things while I plan, and when I am done
I move on to other activities. If the planning does not hold any
practical value but is there only to soothe my fears, I stop the
planning and realize I am planning just to avoid what I fear. I then
investigate the fear point that I am trying to escape, forgive
myself, release the energy and move on.
I commit myself to flag moments when I
fake certainty to cover up my insecurity so that I may investigate
these situations further.
I commit myself to challenge myself to
drop the certainty act and allow myself to be uncertain when and as I
notice myself faking certainty – and I commit myself to investigate
whatever these situations reveal.
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