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”.
--
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.
--
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.
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