Days 278-280: Disassembling the fear of masculinity

24-26072013

I'm continuing with perspectives on self-suppression and self-expression. Today I noticed a habit of suppressing my curiosity about a stranger (i.e. an urge to look at someone just to see who's there) because something about the stranger seems intimidating. This usually happens with young men whom I do not want to mistake my curiosity for romantic/sexual interest. I noticed this habit especially in Vanuatu where all the passerby's would greet me and I would happily greet back – except for the groups of young men. According to my perception the young men there either called out all kinds of woos and pretty words to attract the white trophy woman, or they ignored you completely because women are not considered equal to men. So I decided to not even try to communicate with the young men as normal human beings but saw them as beasts with foul intentions and turned away. I realize that by doing so I never even gave them (or myself) a fair chance.

Today I was sitting in a train and reading a book when two men speaking something that I think was spanish or portuguese sat across from me. I got curious about them and wanted to look at them just to see what kind of people they were, but I associated the language with some macho stereotypes and suddenly got scared that if I looked directly at them they would change from normal human beings (which, as indicated by their discussion, they probably were) into macho machissimo men beasts who would start to hit on me and not leave me alone. I feel ridiculous saying that out loud, because I realize it's all in my imagination.

And so what if someone I paid attention to did take it as a chance to pursuit their desires through me? I am not powerless to direct such a situation so that nothing happens, but apparently I see myself as such. Maybe because I never give myself a chance to try.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see (young) men as sex-hungry psychopaths who would do everything in their power to have sex with a woman they randomly pick out as a target, and that they would not care about consent, ignore all refusals (both the kind “no thank you's” and the blunt “get lost's”) and use manipulation and pressure to get what they want – not realizing that even though this has happened to me many times it does not mean that every single (young) man is like this, and that I forget all the times I have been treated as an equal because of the few times I have been treated as an object.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider what drives a person to act in the way I described above, and rather simplify it into a stereotype of “young horny men” which allows me to blame men for the dysfunctional interaction and abdicate my own responsibility over it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself in these situations to not consider that when a person is driven by desire it is motivated by a fear and to then look for the fear that is present in the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear desireful men (with that specific yearning in their eyes and body language) because when I am the target of their desire I fear getting devoured. (This also applies to cases where I am a willing participant.)

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There is something I have been pondering lately: why does masculinity attract me? Why am I not attracted to feminine people but instead to those who somehow manifest masculinity? I am increasingly aware of the way men (and some women) just ooze this sense of power, like the whole build of a male body is just designed to show off that powerfulness and strength. And all the while I find it extremely attractive I am also frightened by it, because I have seen and felt how it can be abused. Desire and fear, fear and desire, going around and around and around.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear men as a manifestation of masculinity because I fear the qualities of masculinity will be used against me as they have been used against women for a major portion of the human existence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order for humanity to rise from this state of gender inequality it does not only require for men to stop abuse (which they in very large numbers already have) but also for women to stop expecting men to abuse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what women can do to assist the situation towards equality is not to revolt and blame men and call for superiority in the name of unfairness – but to show courage in forgiving ourselves for not assisting men to see why they abuse their masculinity (just as much as women abuse their femininity) and how it could be directed and harnessed for actions that serve that which is the best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse femininity because I have perceived and believed it to be my “only weapon” against masculine power abuse. (Note to self: I just did this today in the face on male dominance – made myself small and meek when another was dominating a situation.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not harness myself as a literal embodiment of femininity into using my feminine qualities for actions that bring about a world that is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my masculine traits to try and get up to “men's level” - to try and balance out inequality by raising myself up to the superior caste, not realizing that this only upholds the gender separation.

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Okay. Now to apply this to the moment of self-suppression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to associate (young) men with my perception of (young) men – the “abusive male” stereotype – and to thus, upon seeing (young) men, draw up that association/stereotype from my mind and react to that mind image with fear as if it was true, not realizing that the mind image is not real in any way whatsoever but a compilation of assumptions, memories and beliefs.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be directed by a fear towards an image in my mind as I have not seen, realized and understood that this image is not real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stop breathing when I react to this mind image with fear, not realizing that as I stop breathing I lock myself into the mind and into the fear as I lose my grounding in this physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have stopped breathing upon reacting to this mind image with fear, to not realize that I can simply start breathing again and thus release myself from the fear as I return from the mind into the physical through this act of grounding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have been locked into this state of fear and not breathing, to be directed into avoiding to look at another, secretly trying to look at another, turning my head away from another, ignoring the look of another, pretending that I am not curious about another and not initiating any sort of contact with another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have locked myself into this state of fear and directed myself into the actions described above, to justify my actions by thinking: “I don't have to know every person on Earth”, “it doesn't matter if I don't make contact with this person”, “I don't have time for a proper discussion”, “why bother if it's just for two minutes”, “I will never meet them again anyway”, “they look like they're not my kind of people anyway”, et cetera – not realizing that every single one of these thoughts is utter bullshit based on fear and separation and not valid reasons in any way whatsoever.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to direct myself into believing my own lies as I have lived within this loop of believing a mind image and then building up a whole conceptual reality around my fear to have it make sense – which I then use again in another situation to repeat this loop ad infinitum – not stopping to realize that the key to ending all this is the initial point of reaction which I accept and allow to pass by unnoticed, unquestioned, unsolved.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my social curiosity about the people I share this reality with under a fear that is not based on the reality, as even though many men have done many harmful deeds, underneath that lies a universe of humanity in which simple comprehendible things accumulate to incomprehendible actions; My fear that “all men want to harm me” does not consider the process a person has to go through to want to harm another being and therefore it is not based on the reality.

When and as I see myself reacting to (young) men with fear - my breath getting shallow, muscles getting tense, head lowering and shoulders rising up and forward – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am reacting to who I believe them to be, not to who they actually are. I realize that my pre-decided perception/belief does not and cannot take into consideration what these people in my field of experience are actually going through within themselves. I realize that by looking at these people through my perception/belief I never give them a chance to live as the best they can be as by expecting them to live as the worst they can be I support them to be just that. I remind myself that every single human being is born as a “clean slate” (apart from what a child learns during pregnancy) and that in most people this platform of self-honest and sincere communication is accessible through kindness, friendliness, honesty and good will. I return myself to breath. If the fear of initiating contact with another lingers, I utilize self-forgiveness to verbalize my experience and then let it go. I ask myself what I would like to do – how is it I would like to express myself – and I push through any remaining resistance and do it. If hesitation remains, I remind myself that it's OK to make mistakes because they are nothing personal but lessons to learn from.

I commit myself to utilize the self-corrective statement above in any and all situations where my fear of (young) men is triggered as far as I am able to remember.

I commit myself to practice breathing (returning myself to self-aware breathing whenever I notice myself having fallen away from it) within and as the realization that if I am stable within breathing when and as the fear of (young) men is triggered, it is much easier for me to notice and then transcend.

I commit myself to challenge myself to “take risks” - to initiate contact with those I fear just to see what happens – as I see, realize and understand that growth only occurs outside of my comfort zone.

Days 276-277: Self-suppression

22-23072013

I have mastered the suppression of my own emotions to such an extent that I become blind to them. There's been something bottling up in me for a while now, and when this experience was triggered in me today once more I realized that there is something way wrong, that I am headed towards a falling point like a car directed towards the edge of a cliff. I realized that I need to stop and face myself, because I knew that if I kept on going I would end up bringing about my own destruction. The problem was, I had no idea what I was experiencing.

I knew I had to be alone to reach the required level of self-intimacy, so I shut myself in the guestroom I'm sleeping in, turned the lights off, wrapped myself in blankets and hugged a hot water bottle. Here I started to ask myself questions. The problem was, my answers would always digress. I would start blaming others and forgetting that I too had responsibility to carry; I would see clues and hints were there weren't any; I would go through different scenarios in my mind as if they were already happening and forget that all of them were possible only through my interpretation of my perception – which is not the equivalent of truth. After following these traces in my mind for a while I realized that I was on the wrong track, that I was making no progress but only making things worse. So I returned to the most prominent experience I had had and started putting it into words. What exactly did I experience? What was my reaction? What was the trigger? Why did I experience this? And underneath this I found the core fear, the worst-case scenario I had been fearful to voice, and when I put it into words and found a way to express it I broke into tears because I was finally in touch with myself again, I was being honest with myself, I knew who I was. But it required a tool of expression, language, and the mental tools to get through the layers of shit I had been piling up.

When I was sitting there crying wrapped in blankets, wearing oversized garments and holding a hot water bottle I thought that I must look like a child and I felt ashamed. I was ashamed for feeling the things I felt. I thought that I should be more than that. I was comparing myself to other people whom I perceived to be much more “adult” than myself because apparently they don't get insecure like this and their lives are all fine and stable. I thought that my problems are like children's problems, ridiculous and immature. And so I realized that a key element in my emotion suppression is shame: for some reason I have learned that emotions/feelings should not be shared, maybe because they should not exist in the first place, maybe because expressing them leaves me vulnerable. I noticed this exact pattern with positive feelings just a couple of days ago when a child I had gotten to know was expressing his affection towards me and I hesitated in responding even though I wanted to. I thought of it as an expression of weakness. Luckily the child did not see it that way, and in his actions I saw that it was in fact a strength, because him expressing his feelings was an act of self-honesty. I intend to learn of his example.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of my emotions and feelings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel ashamed of my inner experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my feelings, emotions and other inner experiences because I have wanted to hide them and not admit that they exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pretend that my emotions and feelings don't exist when I suppress them - and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my own deception.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see emotions and feelings as a weakness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that experiencing feelings/emotions reduces my worth – makes me a less of a person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though emotions and feelings are a sign of mind patterns I have not transcended yet, they are an inevitable part of the process and cannot be bypassed no matter how much I would like to “be there already” - which may or may not be a state of transcendence that is ever achievable in this life (I won't know until I die).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe emotions/feelings to be a sign of weakness instead of realizing that they are a manifestation of who I am within that moment, and that to express who I am is to live as self-honesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to emotions/feelings with fear as I remember the mind pattern [emotion/feeling = negative] - and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to respond to my reaction by suppressing these emotions/feelings because I fear that letting them out would only have negative consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that expressing myself will result in negative consequences for me.

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I know that this has begun somewhere early in my childhood. I have been an introvert child for as long as anyone can remember: I have asked my parents and siblings about this, and according to them I have always “kept to myself”, which everyone thought to be normal because of the belief that some people “just are born” introverts and some extroverts. I realize that this is a pattern I have picked up from my parents, different aspects from both of them, and integrated their issues into a manifestation of insecurity. I have lived as the crystallization of my parents' issues.

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[Here I did detailed SF on my parents in private, which I will continue with and expand on.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize nor understand that every action of self-suppression that I commit supports this pattern of suppressing my emotions/feelings, and that thus in order to overcome the issue with emotional expression I need to tackle every single moment of self-suppression – which means that the process ahead is going to be demanding and thus require my full attention. (No half-assing!)

I commit myself to from now onwards focus on the point of self-suppression in my writings and lived process in order to map out and comprehend how it manifests in different ways and different situations.

I commit myself to for now focus on the point of self-suppression – which directly affects all of my social relations - as my biggest challenge at the moment is to get the social aspect of my life into a balanced state where I could actually utilize relations with others to support and assist me instead of using them to abuse myself and others.

I commit myself to open up the father and mother insecurity patterns with self-forgiveness in private and to share in public whatever I can, if anything at all.

When and as I see myself reacting to an emotion / a feeling with fear and suppression – with the physical sensation as if I am closing the mouth of a bottle (head area) and pushing the emotional energy down towards my solar plexus – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am rejecting myself and refusing to look at who I am, and that the emotion/feeling that was trying to surface was an expression of who I truly am within that moment. I realize I am doing this out of FEAR. I remind myself that emotions/feelings are in fact not a negative thing and that it is better for me to express them so that I am at least honest with myself. I realize that the expression of emotions/feelings can be utilized for self-reflection as when I express myself I have a chance to observe myself and learn of myself. I realize that whatever emotion/feeling I express I am able to forgive myself and that I should thus not be afraid to express any emotion/feeling. I stabilize myself in breath and I utilize breath to release the tension and suppression from my physical body. I look at myself in self-honesty by asking questions in order to figure out what emotion/feeling/experience I was suppressing and why I was afraid to express it. I structure my experience into self-forgiveness statements either in speech or writing and continue with it until the experience dissolves.

Day 275: Missing the "clues"

18072013

Can't you see we're having a conversation?!

Today I had a moment of conflict. I had come out of the shower and into our shared kitchen there had arrived a guest I did not know. There were a lot of things happening at once, many people all doing their stuff in one shared space, and I did not know what exactly was going on because I had been “disconnected” from the social situation for a moment. Instead of stopping to pay much attention to what was happening around me (I was rather assuming I knew what people were doing) I followed myself and noticed I was hungry. I then remembered that me and my friend had bought some food earlier that day and that now we could finally eat it. I went to the kitchen table around which some people were sitting, including the guest, waiting for the tea water to boil and chatting. I brought a couple of fruit to the table and ate one of them. I then asked my friend in english if we should eat our dinner. She switched to finnish (our common language which no one else in the room understood) and told me we should wait. At this point I was getting confused because I was still not sure what exactly was going on, who this person was, what we were all doing and waiting for because based on the clues in body language I was getting that SOMETHING was about to happen. What I should have done here was to stop, breathe and clearly present my point of view: I do not know what's going on; would it be possible to have an explanation to why we cannot eat our dinner now. Instead of properly communicating I just waved at the tea cups gathered on the table and staggered some words in finnish implicating that I was unsure of what was going on. My friend then told me that it would be impolite to eat right here and now. I reacted to her words by feeling judged and ashamed, physically turning away and being unable to look at her. I sat down, took a breath and realized that I was judging myself through my friend's eyes for “not getting it”, not understanding the invisible and unwritten rules of social conduct, the expectations that were placed on a situation “just because”. I realized that these expectations are all imagined and that I am not by any means required to abide to them, especially when they are not properly communicated. I do realize that eating in front of another would be impolite if the other was hungry and I did not share – but I was by no means unwilling to share my food. Finally when the situation unfolded it was revealed to me that everyone was going to have a moment of sharing their evening prayers, where I fully agree none should be eating just to give space for silence and focus, but again this was not communicated to me so I cannot pass blame on myself for not “getting it” - I simply did not know.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to follow the invisible rules of social conduct because if I do not I will be judged by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will think I am rude, impolite, disrespectful and inconsiderate.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that there in fact are absolute “rules” to social conduct dictated by some higher morale / entity / truth when in fact there are only man-made expectations the following of which will be rewarded with acceptance and the breaking of which will be punished with rejection.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to follow what I believe and perceive others to expect of me in a social situation because I fear I will make a “mistake” and be punished in return with rejection and judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to as a child learn to seek for positive reinforcement from others because I have not known how to build a foundation of self-trust and self-confidence and instead have been feeding my ego with the positive feedback I get from others; Thus, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn to fear making “mistakes” and desire behaving “correctly” in social conduct because “mistakes” brought my ego down and “correct” behavior lifted my ego up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the value I perceive and believe there to be in that “me” which grows from positive feedback and diminishes from negative feedback – which is in fact the EGO – is imagined, irrelevant and arbitrary, because the EGO is a fake-self created within the mind, a facade of energy, and not my real self in fact.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my real value is constant because it is measured in LIFE, and that my “worth” is thus not determined by how others see me or how I choose to see me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even when I judge myself my value is constant – I am just not living up to my true value as LIFE as I do not recognize myself to be “worthy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear behaving “incorrectly” in social conduct because I have believed and perceived that my value is dependent on how others respond to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for not picking up “the clues” for how I “should” behave (how I believe and perceive I am expected to behave) in a social situation, not realizing that if it would actually be important for me to behave a specific way it is the responsibility of those who already know this to communicate it to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust others to directly tell me when it is important that I behave a specific way and thus try to pick up "clues" by myself, because in the past others have not communicated their needs and/or expectations to me and have then blamed me for “not getting it” (being insensitive to “clues”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that it is my responsibility when another sets expectations for a situation and then gets disappointed when they are not met, not realizing that I have no part in this process whatsoever.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to communicate my confusion and questions to others unclearly due to hesitation and fear instead of stopping, breathing and first asking myself: “what is going on within me?”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to communicate myself clearly to others by not being clear with myself (knowing what's off-balance) before involving others in my state of being.

I commit myself allow myself breaks in social conduct through stopping, breathing and reflecting (by myself or with others) within and as the realization that it is my responsibility to know myself within interaction because nobody else can.

I commit myself to challenge the idea that interaction should be immediate, fast and effective.

When and as I see myself getting confused and not understanding what is “going on” - I stop, I breathe and I let go of all the things I am trying to understand. I return my focus to myself through breathing and slow myself down. When and as I am stable within myself I return to observing the things I did not understand. I look for the core question: what is it that does not make sense? What is the missing piece of the puzzle? When I have formed the question clearly in my mind (not through heavy thinking but rather intuition) I proceed to solve my confusion by finding an answer to my question in a way that best suits the situation (i.e. asking the question from those present).

I commit myself to build clarity into my communication by building clarity into my relationship with myself.

I commit myself to carry responsibility for my part of interaction by getting to know myself.

When and as I see myself reacting to (self-)judgement by feeling “less” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am mistaking my EGO for my true self. I remind myself that my true value is constant and thus cannot be “less” or “more”, and that every thought, emotion, feeling or movement within me that claims otherwise is a trick of my mind to persuade me to believe my EGO, my false self, is who I am. I breathe and I return my focus to my physical body to anchor myself back into this reality. I let go of the self-judgement in my mind through breath and assist myself with self-forgiveness then and there to clarify any remaining points.

Day 274: Overeating

12072013

While traveling I have often fallen to eating too much. Sometimes it happens because I am bored and find nothing else to entertain myself with, and sometimes I think ahead and try to make sure I don't get hungry in the future, in case there is a situation where I will be unable to obtain food. A couple of days ago this habit of constantly being full and straining my digestion system led to me getting sick. I have been unable to eat because my intestines are too worn out to process food so nothing stays in. This has forced me to spend my time mostly fasting, which I am grateful of, because I have known and seen that I am doing damage onto myself but have not known how to say no to food when it's so plentifully offered everywhere.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not listen to my body when choosing how, what and when to eat.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as eating is primarily a physical function, what I need to listen to while eating is my physical body, not my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to eat to satisfy my mind instead of eating to satisfy my body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to entertain myself with eating when I am bored.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use food as a way to escape the reality that is here – the reality that to me seems “boring” - without stopping to ask myself why it is that I see no other way to direct that moment of boredom; why is it that I use food as an escape and what am I escaping from.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to eat the food I am offered as I fear that the other will be offended if I do not eat the food – not realizing that the whims of others should not be my primary concern when choosing how, what and when to eat but my physical body which carries all the actual consequences of eating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to empty my plate even if there is too much food on it because as a child I have been taught that “I should not leave food on my plate” – not realizing that I have not considered why I have been taught such a rule nor have I asked myself why I should continue living according to such a rule if it compromises the well-being of my physical body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear not finishing my food because I fear that I will offend the person who made the food.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear not finishing my food because I fear that others will judge me for wasting food as a valuable resource.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I have no say over the size of the portion of food I am not responsible for finishing it, although I am responsible to find other solutions to the situation (i.e. giving the rest of the food to someone else; advising the one who gave the food to give out smaller portions).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that it is possible to “eat for the future” - that it is possible for me to avoid future hunger by eating now even though I am not hungry – not realizing that this is not physically possible without me damaging myself as when I eat when I am not hungry I am acting against the needs of my physical body by stuffing myself with “fuel” even though my “tank” is full.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not respect hunger as a sign of a physical need but to fear hunger as a sign of possible suffering.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will go hungry and not have food to satisfy this need because I fear the experience of hunger and resent the discomfort it causes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent the experience of hunger and try to run from it by keeping myself fully fed as often as possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with panic to the physical sensation of hunger.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not embrace the sensation of hunger as a sign that my body is functioning as it should.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that hunger is a sign of a healthy body communicating its needs and NOT something I need to be afraid of as I live in such a fortunate position where I will (most likely) always be able to obtain some kind of food to survive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I will not die of hunger in a few hours and that temporary hunger is thus no reason to panic.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are other solutions to future hunger than stuffing myself with food beforehand, such as carrying food with me to eat when I do in fact get hungry.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel tempted to eat the food I carry with me for future hunger even if I do not get hungry, feeling that I “should” eat the food now that it's there for me already, not realizing that if I simply do not get hungry I can just as well save it for later or give it away.

When and as I feel like eating – I stop, I breathe and I return my focus to my body. I ask myself whether I am actually in the need of food. If I am, I proceed to eating. If I am not actually in the need of food and still feel like eating, I ask myself what need I am trying to fulfill with eating. I stabilize myself within breath as one with my body and move myself out of the mental desire to eat by directing myself to do something else instead. If I fail to do so, I open the point further in writing.

When and as I am offered food – I stop, I breathe and I do not respond. I realize that my response is usually an automatic “yes” that does not consider my physical existence but only seeks to satisfy my mind. I stabilize myself in breath and I move my focus to my physical body. I ask myself whether I am actually in the need of food (and especially the kind of food that is being offered). If I am, I accept the food that is offered. If I am not actually in the need of food I decline the food that is offered, and in order to avoid any misunderstandings I communicate the reason for my refusal.

When and as I eat – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that when I am not here as one with my body when eating, I do not listen to my body and tend to eat too much. I slow myself down with breathing and move my focus onto the act of eating ONLY. I keep my focus on the food as it goes down to my stomach and remain aware of the sensations of my stomach. I pause eating after each mouthful to listen to my body and to give my body time to adjust to the food it has received. When and as my body tells me it has had enough food I stop eating. If there is food left, I consider the options available for utilizing the food (i.e. giving away, saving for later). I choose the option that I assess to be the best for all.

I commit myself to utilize the self-corrective statements above in my everyday life starting NOW and if I run into any trouble while doing so I commit myself to write about whatever points I face.

I commit myself to trust myself to carry myself through hunger with stability in breathing and to show myself there is nothing to fear, nothing to escape, nothing to run from.

Days 271-273: One big family

09-11072013

A new perspective on family was presented to me yesterday. In the western world our idea of a family is very narrow, consisting only of the “core family” which is usually the parents and their children. This view on family causes our circle of empathy to become limited, meaning that we only feel empathy towards those we perceive to be closest to us, and most people beyond those borders are met and interacted with from a distance. I have had conversations with friends where they have told me that as long as they and their families are safe and well, the rest of the world can die around them. “Why would I care?”, I'm told.

Right now I am visiting a culture in which the concept of family is more expansive. People call each others brothers and sisters and aunties and mamas and papas even if they weren't actually related by blood, because the concept of family covers all the people you interact with in your life, the people you live with, work with, spend time with, all the people you come across. Sometimes this leads to confusion about who is actually a brother to someone and whatnot, but mostly it just doesn't matter. Why would it be any different if we were born from the same mother? What difference would it make in the life we live right now, right here? Because my friend has been living here for months now she knows many people, and when she has introduced me to people I have immediately been accepted as a part of family. I am her “sister” and she is everyone's “family” so I am “family” as well.

Yesterday my friend told me how she had realized what difference this change in view actually makes in the actions of people, and I realized I have never really considered people outside my family as family. There is a lot of talk for example within christianity about us all being each others “brothers” and “sisters” - and I realized that I have never lived in such a way, I have never really seen other people without that boundary: “you are alien to me”, “keep your distance”. I tried this approach with another friend I came across that day, asking myself “what if he was my brother?”, and I noticed a difference in the level of empathy and care towards that person. It was a strange experience, like a veil being lifted, especially because I have been welcomed like a family member here thinking I have given the same back to others, but now it appears that actually I haven't.

I realize that the reason I raise these walls with others is fear. I have defined family as “the place where I am safe”, which is a definition that excludes the rest of humanity, which is a shitload of people. I realize that my actual family is the entire human race, because we have all originated from the same process of evolution. We're all branches of the same tree. It does not matter which branch I happen to be born in, because the trunk is the same for everyone. In order to live as equal to everyone else I need to see them as my family, as one with me, not as “the others”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to out of fear keep people at a distance and only allow a selected few get close to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define these selected few to be “family”, consisting of the people I grew up with and thus developed a strong bond of trust with and the people I have developed bonds of trust with later on through friendship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to require people to show me their “trustworthiness” before I let them close to me, not realizing that I am here pushing the responsibility over my own insecurity to others when in fact I should be facing myself and asking myself what it is I am protecting from others and ultimately from myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that insecurity is when I refuse to know myself and thus will not let others know me either because when others would see me I would be forced to see me as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “family” as a safe environment because the people included in “family” already know everything about me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I cannot let people outside of “family” close to me because “I don't know them” - not realizing that it is actually about them not knowing me and me feeling insecure about myself and how these people will react when they find out all about me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that people will judge and reject who I am and from within that fear regulate what I express of myself to present an appropriate appearance instead of living as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel uncertain about who I am and thus hesitate to show myself as I really am because I fear I will not be accepted by those around me who have not yet shown me how they relate to who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the people who have not yet seen who I am because I do not know whether they will accept me or not, whereas with “family” I already “know” (assume / trust) that I will be accepted no matter what.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define the people whose acceptance is uncertain to me as “unsafe” and “not family”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a behavioral pattern of keeping a distance to everyone who I've defined as “unsafe”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place value on the acceptance of others as a definer of my worth and thus create a desire to have acceptance / a fear of not having acceptance – not realizing that I am making myself completely dependent on the whims of others and thus living as self-neglect instead of embracing myself and gifting myself with self-acceptance, which is all that I actually need to know I am “worthy” - that I am LIFE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the acceptance or rejection of others does NOT define me unless I use it as an excuse to define myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all definitions are self-definitions – in other words, even if another person would define me through acceptance/rejection, this definition does NOT exist within my subjective experience of life – which is all I've got! - UNLESS I believe the definition and use it myself, which is when I myself direct myself to define myself a certain way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it does not matter how well I can guess how another will react to who I am, because in the end it is always a guess as people might choose differently depending on a many factors – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely on “family” to always accept me, not realizing that one day they may not and then I'd have to carry myself, and that it is thus my responsibility to be able to carry myself even without a “safety net”.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to people who get close to my “personal zone” and that I've limited and suppressed my self-expression accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a “personal zone” within which are all the things I feel insecure about and outside of which are all the things I feel secure about, the outside forming my appearance and the inside my hidden self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified to have a “personal zone” within which I can keep things that I do not want anyone to see – not realizing that by doing this I give myself permission to not look at those things either, which is when I neglect myself by not actually knowing myself thoroughly, the “dark” and the “light” side of me alike.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by letting others see the things I am insecure about I am able to get immeasurably valuable feedback about myself and the sides of me that I do not yet know, and that I am thus doing myself a great service by letting others see my insecurities as they then become insecurities no more; when you shine a light to a shadow all you see is what is actually in the shadow and the shadow itself disappears.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified for people to have “personal zones” because if others are allowed to have one, so am I, which means that I am safe just as long as I give others the same chance to hide.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold the “personal zones” of others by not approaching the topics that people seem to be uncomfortable with, not realizing that I am actually doing them a disservice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exert my discomfort on those who have approached my “personal zone” by getting angry and offended and blaming these people for being “invasive” and “insensitive”, either directly expressing this, talking about them behind their backs or passing blame within my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not embrace the chance to explore myself and get to know myself when others have approached my “personal zone” aka the sides of me I am insecure about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to people approaching my “personal zone” by instantly “withdrawing” into a defensive posture where I close myself up so that nothing else would “leak out”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I go into this defensive posture mentally I also tense up physically and thus cause damage and strain onto my physical self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to arrogantly believe and perceive that I already fully know who I am, not realizing that this belief/perception itself indicates an approach that will stop me from fully seeing myself.

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When and as I see myself tensing up in the presence of someone I find “unsafe”, trying to present the “good side” of me and hiding my weaknesses – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am hiding something I myself do not wish to see. I remind myself that there is nothing to fear, because the response/feedback of another is nothing personal and does NOT define me. I stabilize myself in breath and I ask myself: what do I not want the other to see? Why do I not want to see it myself? I locate the tension in my physical body and assist it to relax with breath. I continue with the interaction aware of the fears that are present within me and I keep myself open to opportunities to work on those fears directly with the other.

I commit myself to utilize the self-corrective statement above throughout this day to see what difference it makes in the interactions I have and how it affects my current state of being.

In order to see what difference it makes, I commit myself to face people as if they were my family by asking myself: “what if he/she was my brother/sister/mother/father?”

I commit myself to this experiment as a birthday gift to myself.

Days 269-270: Racial prejudice

06-07072013

Today I was walking to the convenience store with my friend and on the street we witnessed and uncommon incident. An old local man was sitting by the road and another man (caucasian) was walking from the store carrying a bottle of soda in a plastic bag. The old man stood up, stopped the other man, took the bottle from the plastic bag and started walking away with the bottle. Here we stopped to look at what was going on because the old man just did it, “this is now mine”, and started leisurely walking away, not running. The other man was as confused as we were and just followed the old man for a while. I don't know if he ever got it back because we continued on.

According to my friend what we saw was really out of place; she has lived here for 18 months and never seen anything like it. The culture here is that everything is of common property, but still people don't exactly “steal” unless they're driven to it by extreme poverty. The culture of sharing or forceful claiming might be the cause of the low crime rate – a lot of stealing is not recognized to be stealing, it's just taking what's rightfully yours. Which does have a logic of its own as all of the Earth's resources should belong to everyone, but we do not yet live in a society where this would actually function through equal distribution, so for now I just call this coercion and theft.

When we discussed this incident afterwards I pointed out the obvious “white man” prejudice: maybe the old man took from the white man because the overall misconception is that all white men are rich and have plenty from which to share. My friend then replied that during her stay here she has learned that these incidents mostly have to do with simple human relations rather than racism, and that every time when she has tried to solve a situation without bringing up the possible racial prejudice someone else pulls out the “racism card” – and this is when I realized that this is true, that the racial argument is an easy answer, an easy explanation. To just say “because racism” is to bypass all of the processes that lead up to racial prejudice or to any sort of prejudice for that matter. I will now carry responsibility for supporting racial prejudice by assuming it from others, and by downplaying a lot of what happens within a human being by compressing it into a “racism explanation”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that all the locals live according to the misconception that people with “white skin” (everyone who is not black) is rich in material possessions, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to this belief/perception with fear of others judging me and thinking less of me because of an assumption that is based on nothing but the colour of my skin and has nothing to do with who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being unfairly judged because it affects how others treat me, behave around me and relate themselves to me in spite of my own application.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if others choose to believe their perception of me in spite of my application, there is nothing I can do about it but to move on to other people and other circumstances where movement might be possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the concept of racism to explain human behavior without looking into what causes racism to formulate – what exactly accumulates into racism.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at myself and how I have lived as racism in order to figure out how racism is created.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of people of different ethnicities as mine as “others” - the ones that are opposite from me, separate from me, disengaged from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have always lived in a homogenous society with one dominant ethnicity, to define this one dominant ethnicity as “familiar” and “safe” and react with fear whenever I come across people of an ethnicity I have defined as “unfamiliar”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the physical appearance of a person is a boundary that separates us from each other, like a wall standing in between us, not stopping to actually face and interact with the other to see, realize and understand that the wall is a wall of FEAR which I have created and imagined to be real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within my fear to avoid facing a person of a different ethnicity, thus stopping myself from seeing, realizing and understanding that we are both LIFE, that we both breathe and move and have beating hearts and pulsing bodies, and that in that we are absolutely equal – the amount of LIFE in both of us is equal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be moved by my fear of “the others” into avoiding contact with those who I have defined as “unfamiliar” / “alien”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid eye contact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid touch contact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid conversation with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities through fear, reservation, reluctance, tension, stereotyping, assumptions - never giving these people a fair chance because I never allow myself to look at who they actually are with eyes unclouded by fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as prejudice by believing that “I know” something about the other better than he/she knows it him/herself, not realizing that this claim is arrogant as well as absurd because I cannot know the subjective experience of another, especially not based on first impression alone.

When and as I see myself avoiding contact with a person of an “unfamiliar” ethnicity – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am erecting an imaginary wall in between two equal beings of life. I stabilize my breath, find my heartbeat if possible and I move myself out of my position of hiding by physically opening myself up by releasing muscle tension, turning to face the other and making sure my posture is open, relaxed and supportive. I search myself for any trace of prejudice and remind myself that in fact I don't know anything about the other person for certain.

I commit myself to no longer accept and allow my racial prejudice to move me by utilizing the self-corrective statement above.

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I was just talking with my friend about the reoccurring themes we have discussed lately and I noticed that I was about to pull out another compressed explanation – this time only it was not the “racism card” but the idea of this culture being in a “teenage” state of development which I have used to explain immature behavior in relationships. I realized that there are more of these explanation cards than just the racism one, and I will deal with this issue separately.

Day 268: Stepping into a developing country

01072013

Yet another culture shock, this time the biggest so far. I am living luxuriously in a house and even here some of the basic commodities are missing. I am adjusting, though. What it seems to require is taking one step at a time, not looking ahead, focusing on the necessities, focusing on survival. And that's the most interesting thing: once put in a developing country with little to no infrastructure, all I can focus on is survival. Having a house like this and not living in the bush enables me to do something besides surviving, such as writing right now like this. I'm starting to have a clue of what it means in practical terms that giving everyone the basic infrastructure for survival would release them for “higher” kinds of human functions. When the heat is killing you, all you can do is look for a shade and sleep it off. When you're devoured by thirst, you track down water that's drinkable – if you're lucky, you'll find a tap. When you want to eat, you take what's offered – and if you get picky and want some vegetables with your noodles and rice, you take the 30 minute walk to the market stalls down the uneven mud paths. And this is how the day is spent. In the fulfillment of basic necessities. If a child is lucky enough, he/she will not be needed to take part in these activities and may have a chance to go to school. Otherwise, there's just no place for studying. There's no energy left for it.

I do not see why some people glorify these kinds of conditions, because the problems caused by them are unnecessary: a small wound may get so badly infected just because of the heat and lack of hygiene that it may require hospital care. This all may be fun if you're taking a holiday from your everyday life, staying in a bungalow at the resort areas and taking organized cruises to see the dolphins – people might even say it's “relaxing” to be in a place so primitive – but that's just because those people don't actually live here, they have a place to go back to, somewhere to return to once it gets too uncomfortable. The only thing so far I've found enviable is the night sky. Here it actually gets dark so you can actually see the stars, milky way and all, and that helps you remember where it is we actually are: on a rock floating in space. It would be awesome to find a way to reduce light pollution in the busy parts of the globe.

So I will be living the local's life here – no resorts, bungalows or cruises, just the everyday drill. There will be some work but mostly chilling and taking care of basic needs. I am looking forward to this learning experience because it is unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and also, I think, one of the most necessary things I have ever done. It's time to bring in some perspective.

Day 267: Racism - the joke is on me

30062013

I am right now in a situation I knew to be coming but which I did not really know how to prepare myself for: I am an ethnic minority in my current environment, and the locals aren't shy to express their curiosity about it. Today as I was walking in town I experienced it in a very negative way (and from what I've heard, it is often intended to be so), but the thing is, I cannot really know what another person thinks or expects, so all I can do is to make sure I approach people with the best intentions. I realize that I walk here as an ambassador of “the white man” and that is why I have treated everyone with friendliness, just to make sure that I get something right – but I realize that I am driven by fear, because in-between every encounter with the locals I just found myself exhausted and conflicted. A friend of mine has lived here for about 18 months and according to her experience there is a common misconception about “the white men” that they're all rich and selfish, and that knowledge affects how I position myself towards the locals. I do not know whether it is the actual spiteful experience of the people that I sense or whether I'm just making this up.

So in order to be able to approach people as myself and without fear I'm going to have to face my fears. Why am I terrified?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that people will want to exploit me, harm me, abuse me and rob me because of a misconception and a stereotype that I fall into because of my ethnicity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that there is no way for me to influence this false image that others might have of me, not realizing that I am in fact able to do so through my own behavior and application, at least to a certain extent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to stand as an example to correct the misconception of the people here, thus constantly stressing about whether I'm “succeeding” or “failing” in my interactions with others, fearful that others may have judged me to be a stereotypical “white man” and that I have failed to educate them – not realizing that it is not my responsibility ALONE to correct the misconception of an entire nation of an entire ethnic group, but the responsibility of ALL “white men” and/or people in general.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if I'd do my ultimate best to convince people that their beliefs are misconceptions, people might still not be convinced because they make up their own minds and I cannot do that for them – and that thus all that I can do is do my best, no more, no less.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about presenting a good image of myself to convince people that their beliefs are misunderstandings, not realizing that by trying to appear as something I am not here as myself and thus live out dishonesty, and that I am thus sabotaging my own attempts to create relations based on truthfulness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that living as myself is not enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that living as myself is not enough to convince others that their assumptions are incorrect, and that I need to present an extra-good image in order to make up for the misgivings of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel responsible for the misgivings of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and make up an entire human history of abuse and slavery by pushing myself to be the best possible presentation of a person, not realizing that this is both too much and too little – too much in the sense that I am trying to make myself carry more responsibility than I can bear, and too little in the sense that simple acts of kindness will not actually fix the problems left by abuse (here: colonialism and war).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though acts of simple kindness (i.e. smiling, greeting, having a conversation) will not suffice for actually helping these people, they are all that I can give right now before I am ready to contribute in a way that will address the bigger issues.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect every local person to measure me against a stereotype and thus live as the fear of failure within every interaction, not realizing that my “success/failure” with this challenge is not measured by how many people I manage to “convert” but by who I am and become within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to seeing a local person with fear through a scenario of possible failure, not seeing a person in front of me but only a measure of my worth – not realizing that this act of complete ignorance of the person here with me is the exact kind of selfishness I wish to not represent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by expecting and believing everyone to think of me a certain way I support the whole mind pattern of racism – I live as what I fear from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the malicious thoughts of others because believing the thought might lead to malicious actions, not realizing that in-between the thought, the permission and the action is space in which I am able to influence the outcome of the situation.

I commit myself to live as who I am – not as a presentation of who I believe I should be.

I commit myself to trust that as long as I am clear on my principles I do not have to put on an appearance to show others the best I can be.

I commit myself to focus on breathing and self-honesty when and as I interact with the locals, aware of any and all stress points in thought processes as well as in the physical body as tension and pain.

I commit myself to no longer justify the existence of the spiteful “white man” stereotype by giving it my permission to exist by apologetically recognizing it in the behavior of others – and I commit myself to investigate my own feelings of spite towards what the human kind has done.