06092013
Yesterday I was working in the bar and
close to our closing time a couple of my new class mates from
university walked in. While I was talking with them and observing
their behavior in the bar I realized something about these people,
and about myself.
I'll name these two girls A and B. For
the past couple of weeks that I've been hanging out with them I've
observed A to be a bit tense and nervous, but she seems active, and
she has been one of the most eager to go out to party. B has appeared
very fearful to me, kind of fidgety, with her eyes darting around as
if she's not sure whether my look for instance (or anything in her
environment) is friendly or hostile.
When they came to the bar yesterday
they were both very drunk, and a lot started to make sense. A, who
had been most eager to go party, was really loud and expressive when
she was drunk – and I realized that she is probably a very
expressive person who just believes she cannot do it without alcohol
in her system. And B, while drunk, was a bit less fidgety, and came
across as very warm and friendly when her guard was lowered.
What I realized was that with these
kind of people I have usually been influenced by prejudice. I have
judged their need to get intoxicated and I have labeled them into a
specific kind of a stereotype (“pissikset” in finnish, the
archetype of a superficial teenage girl). I have not wanted to be in
contact with these kinds of people and I have very effectively pushed
them out of my life. This time around when I began university I knew
that I would be facing all kinds of people and my approach was
different than usual – I wasn't prepared for anything specific, I
just knew that I wanted to get to know all kinds of new people that I
came across because university is a great place for doing that.
Yesterday I realized that I had not labeled these people into that
superficial stereotype: to me they were just my classmates. And so I
was able to actually see them and embrace them because I wasn't
separating them from myself with a made-up boundary.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to blind myself from seeing people for who they
actually are (how they are actually moving in this reality without my
filtered interpretation of it) by believing and perceiving them to be
“different” from me and thus never seeing them as one with and
equal to me.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear seeing other people as one with and equal
to me because it would require me to see myself in them, including
the things that I judge, dislike, hate, resent or despise in others.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear seeing myself as one with and equal to
people who believe they need alcohol/drugs to be able to express
themselves without limitations, because I have been like this myself
and haven't forgiven myself for it.
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear seeing myself as one with and equal to
people who suppress and limit their self-expression because I am
struggling with the same issues myself, just in different ways, and
because “freedom of expression” is a defining factor in my
personality/ego and admitting that I am in fact limited in my
self-expression would shatter my ego.*
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to set myself apart from people who are limited in
their self-expression by adopting the role of someone above them –
“the one who is NOT limited in their self-expression” – not
realizing that this is just another personality I use to feel good
about myself.*
I forgive myself that I have accepted
and allowed myself to fear exposing myself as insecure to others who
are insecure as I fear giving up my position of dominance, not
realizing that exposing myself to another might actually be of
support to the other when upholding my appearance and keeping a
distance most certainly will not.
I commit myself to investigate and
explore how exposing my “weaknesses” to others would act as
support and assistance for others as well as for myself.
I commit myself to seek for the “good”
in other people – their true potential – especially in those who
I dislike, despise, resent, hate and/or judge.
I commit myself to expect from other
people nothing but their utmost potential, as I have seen how this
approach to others actually brings out the best in them; when and as
I live within the experience “you are a small push away from the
best you can be” I support the other to make that push and live as
the best they can be.
I commit myself to investigate the ego
and personality points mentioned above.*
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