Day 359: The celebration illusion

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At a wedding (2010).

I would like to share something I experienced a few days ago. I was spending time with a specific group of friends, celebrating the end of the year and enjoying each other's company. Most of the people present were drinking alcohol, and because of my recent re-commitment I had made the choice to not drink alcohol; even though I partially already made the decision when I left for the party without a bottle, the decision was solid only when I was at the party, thinking about what liquids to consume and choosing to fill my glass with water instead of asking others to share their wine with me. I drank water, I felt relaxed and awake, I was enjoying myself.

At one point we decided to walk to the local pub, which was a small place full of people and with a troubadour performing. When walking in I noticed myself thinking that I was “out of place” - that I was a “city beau” walking among “small town hicks” - and that I should have portrayed myself gracefully according to this image. I didn't, however, because I realized that my clothes were so mundane that I wouldn't have been able to pull off that show convincingly. (I realize that with this line of thinking I separate myself from others and attempt to compensate for my insecurity by elevating myself, but that is not the focus of this story as I did not act upon it this time around.)

What happened next was interesting. I had gotten myself a drink, I was listening to the troubadour and singing loud with my friends (simply out of the joy of knowing the lyrics, lol), and since I had had just a couple of sips of my gin and tonic I was fully sober. The troubadour started playing a familiar song that everyone knows the lyrics to, but which is a song I strongly resent. The lyrics are basically about sex, sleeping around, escapism and getting drunk. Everybody around me was singing the song, dancing in the cramped space and fully lost in the experience of the moment – whereas I stopped, I looked around and I saw everything that the song stands for (losing oneself in momentary escapism) in the actions of the people surrounding me. I stood breathing and stable inside a bar during the energy peak of the evening (the “party experience” chain of events) and I stopped participating. I stopped dancing, I stopped singing, I stopped smiling, I stopped drinking, and I just breathed. I put my glass down and left it there. I sat down and just watched everyone around me. All my will to participate in any of it had been drained out of me with the realization of what the culture of drinking stands for.

My reaction towards the song of course plays a part here, because I projected what I saw in the song on the people around me. Thus, I may have seen them in a more “negative light” because of the self-judgement that the song brought up. However, this doesn't negate the fact that at least a part of what I saw was actually there.

So, basically, what I learned was that the illusion of the “party experience” - the story of the party that one tells within one's mind before, during and after the actual events - is in fact an illusion that one can stop participating in. It was easy when I was sober and not influenced by any specific emotional energy, but I am guessing that it can be done even under the influence of alcohol when and as the emotional attachment to the “experience” is dissolved – in other words, when I step outside of the hamster wheel that I keep fueling by myself. I'm kinda tempted to get drunk just to test my theory, lol.

Day 358: SF on "Who should I be?" - group work and competitiveness

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This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create myself a “choir personality” - a survival system to get me through the challenge of a new environment – within which I am social, active, funny, encouraging and driven by the desire to succeed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be a good singer within the choir as I have been afraid of being the “weak link” in a group.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop the fear of being the “weakest” in a group out of childhood experiences in school gymnastics classes where I did not measure up to other kids.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear group work because I might appear the “weakest” (a loser).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to work in a group when and as I have believed and perceived I would be one of the “strong players” (winners).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I enjoy group work and that I am good at group work, not realizing that my prominent experiences from group work are such where I have been a “strong player” and thus have felt confident and good about myself, which has made it easy for me to feel good about the work done in a group.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have only perceived myself to be “good at group work” when I have been “winning”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at the many occasions when I have been a “weak link” in a group and consequently not a functioning team player (fearful, competitive, spiteful).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to superimpose my self-standards (being appreciated by others) on the group I am working with, expecting and demanding them to be what I want them to be so that I wouldn't face bad consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “failing” in front of an audience: doing something that will break the illusion of an artist/performer as a god-like superhuman that cannot fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I fail in front of an audience that expects me to succeed I will be judged.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that every individual in an audience expects me to succeed / to not fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when an audience member's expectations are not met by disrupting an experience with something unexpected, all the individuals in the audience will react with disdain, irritation and/or anger and believe and perceive that it is my fault that they reacted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a stereotype of an audience member / a spectator, believing and perceiving that everyone who passively looks at a performance of any kind does not want to be interrupted or challenged because they expect to be allowed to remain passive and find it vexing when it is not allowed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label this act of allowing another to remain within their comfort zone while providing the kind of stimuli they expect as entertainment, not questioning the need to be entertained nor the profession of entertaining.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a learning process comprises almost completely of mistakes, and that making mistakes is thus not a negative thing as it can be used to develop understanding and skill.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear others seeing my mistakes, not realizing that others witnessing my learning process is not a bad thing but is in fact educational for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if a performance goes exactly as planned, everything that I'm yet to master is still visible to the audience that sees me, whether they're consciously taking it in or not and whether I'm aware of my misgivings or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that hiding my mistakes and misgivings is not possible and that if I try I will only show others my fear of failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though it would benefit the entire choir if the people doing the gigs would do their job carefully, if I press the point through my fear of failure I will only create resentment, and that even if I discussed the point through practicality I cannot ultimately make others perform well but can only focus on my own application.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will fail in life (not survive).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire succeeding in life (surviving).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a linear story in which the end result is what matters and defines how well my life has been lived, not realizing that life exists only in the NOW moment, within and as this moment of consciousness where I as the will within this organism called the human body am in constant motion, and that life is not measured only in the end result at the moment of my death somewhere in the future but in every moment that I am alive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a competition where I need to succeed in order to “make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to become a competent human being I do NOT need to outrun everyone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I attempt to outrun others out of fear of losing to others, I am abusing myself, eating myself up with fear and stress and thus sabotaging myself and making way for my own failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is possible to become skilled and competent by becoming what the skill requires – changing who I am and living out the consequence – instead of pushing myself towards an ideal through self-judgement without figuring out the practical steps to get there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though life is about “competing with myself” to see and realize what my potential is and understand how to live up to it, life is in fact NOT about competing with other living beings because we as a whole form one big living organism – humanity / the Earth / the universe - which functions best if its particles work together and not for themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I live according to my self-interest at the expense of other life forms, competing to become the best and the biggest, I am the cancer cell in this organism feeding on other cells, either taking down the entire organism as the cancer spreads through my influence or being eventually removed so that the organism may keep on living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that competitiveness is considered a positive trait only within the human consciousness system - in the conceptual reality we live out through our minds – and that when looking at nature it is not competitiveness that we see in ecosystems that thrive but co-operation, development, support and sharing that leads to progress and prosperity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the human species has proven itself to be the “king” of all species by being competitive within itself and with other life forms and thus conquering land, developing technology and making scientific breakthroughs, and that competitiveness is thus a positive trait – not realizing that while doing so the human species has eaten up most of the Earth's resources and thrived at the expense of ALL LIFE even though it appears as if the human species has been “successful”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my desire to compete.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself goals on what I need to achieve during my life as a measurement of success, feeling that if I would now die without achieving those goals I would have failed in my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my life will have had worth only if I achieve something “big” (a clear improvement in the field of life I am able to influence).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine life being a game of tasks of different sizes, difficulties and rewards, thus giving bigger value to tasks that are “bigger” (improving the world) and not valuing the tasks that are “small” (breathing) – not realizing that since all that exists is the NOW moment, what may or may not happen in the future is not relevant, but only what I do HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if my focus is in the future, my focus is not in the present moment in my present actions, and that my actions are thus half-assed as my focus is not fully HERE.

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I commit myself to explore group work from the perspective of co-operation instead of competition.

I commit myself to investigate how power dynamics within a group could be supportive for all, so that the “strongest” would utilize their strength to assist the “weakest”.

I commit myself to map out how I manifest competitiveness and how I manifest co-operation within the groups I am working in at the moment (choir, theatre, university, dancing group, work, organizations, friends and all the sub-groups within these).

I commit myself to explore performing situations from the perspective of allowing others to witness my learning process through whatever mistakes and misgivings I manifest.

I commit myself to continue mapping out who I believe and perceive I should be and how I apply myself according to this belief/perception, and to thus investigate what is causing me to feel burdened, resulting in the pain/friction in my shoulders.

I commit myself to make a written note of all situations where I see myself competing (fear of failure / desire to succeed) and to investigate them with written or spoken introspection.

I commit myself to teach myself to map out my goals through practical steps and realistic timelines, starting with the projects I am working on now (e.g. studying).

Day 357: Who should I be?

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A scenario I sometimes conjure in my mind as an insecure vegetarian.

Because my chronic shoulder pain is one of the major points why my moment-to-moment living is currently “unpleasant” in such a way that makes me want to “unwind” through different means of relaxation (alcohol, socializing, video games, TV, sleeping), I am now focusing on the shoulder point as representing survival systems. Because this pain has arisen during these past 4 months, where I have also had a lot of changes and faced new challenges, the question I'm asking myself is: What survival systems have been activated within myself in my new surroundings and positions?

Whenever a person interacts with the world, the mind activates to ask: what should I do to make the best of this (to survive)? The human mind then searches for cues and clues for a) what one's surroundings are b) who one is in relation to one's surroundings. If there are other people involved, the mind maps out who the others are and who oneself is in relation to them. This process of mapping out one's reality is often twisted so that one's assessments don't have anything to do with what is actually here and what actually happened, but instead focus on what one believes and perceives or imagines to be true.

For example, one might talk with another person and interpret their tone of voice to mean that the other has ill intentions even though his/her words do not directly imply so. This is when one's perception of the reality is believed instead of interacting with the actual reality to find out what actually happened: whether the other person actually had ill intentions or not.

This tendency to assume that one “knows” what's going on within other people affects our actions greatly. The perspective I am now focusing on are the assumptions I have of other people's expectations for me: “who do others want me to be?” What would be the best course of action for me so that this situation with other people would have a positive outcome for me? Living through this question places a heavy burden on my shoulders (literally!) as whenever I interact with other people my actions are determined by what I believe I should be. This strain and the conflict/friction that occurs when I question this pattern and try to live otherwise is, I'm guessing, the reason I have been in intense physical pain for a while now with no help from external methods (exercise, stretching, massage).

So, I have recently been asking myself the question “who do I believe and perceive I should be (here)” or “who am I trying to be”. After observing myself in different situations I have so far found one common nominator: trying to be “good” / liked. I immediately associated this to my childhood where I have learned to try to be pleasing in school to be liked and to get good grades. The measure for “success” or “appearing likable” varies according to circumstances.

For example, today I had a small singing gig with some people from my choir on a very short notice. It was my first gig with this choir, and I took it very seriously as a “representation task”, knowing that we would be paid plenty of money for it, that our future gig invitations rely on how well we perform and that there would be many “important academic people” in the audience. I was very stiff and serious, wanting to appear professional even though we had had very little practice and I was unsure of the songs, and I noticed that I was projecting my self-demands on the other singers. I saw myself judging their laid-back attitudes, their “lack of ambition”, and even the ways they sat hunched and limp. I realized that I was afraid of “sinking with the boat”: that the audience would judge me along with the group no matter how hard I tried individually. I realized that imposing my self-standards on others is to distract my focus from myself – to accommodate my world to my demands instead of living within and as the world – and that I was causing my shoulder pain to get worse with the stiff way I was sitting.

Now, what is relevant here is who I believe and perceive “the audience” to be. After 20 years of performing in front of differing audiences I have come to define “the audience” as this faceless entity with the power to either appreciate what I perform (acceptance) or to resent it (rejection). I have defined “the audience” to have the power to define me, or more specifically, my self-worth. I have not realized to question the “power” of the audience and how I have handed it over.

Another point I'm seeing here is the fact that for me performing is a very selfish thing, even though I have done it in a group for 15 years. What matters is ME, my ego, my success, how I look, how I appear, it's always been underneath all the fancy words about teamwork. Today during that choir gig my anxiety arose from how it would make ME look bad if the gig didn't go well. I wanted the others to stop being careless because it would made me look bad, not because their carelessness has consequences on themselves and the choir as a whole. In other words, I was not focusing on the best of All but on my self-interest, which is why I was working "alone" instead of working as a group.

I'll continue from here with self-forgiveness.

Days 355-356: Escaping physical strain

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In regards to what I wrote about alcohol/socializing being a way to relax for me, I've been paying attention to how and why I make my moment-to-moment living uncomfortable / unenjoyable so that I need the release from “leisure” to balance myself from the exhaustion I have created. So far I have come across some points.

• Physical strain: either my backpack is too heavy or the wrong size for me, or my posture is not OK for sustainably carrying a heavy backpack while walking long distances. Also, my physical reading positions are rarely such where I would not end up in pain: I always eventually jam up my back and/or shoulders. As I write my shoulder muscles are currently in a very painful state.
• Partly because of the physical discomfort I tend to escape my breath-to-breath living into my mind. I usually think about a) past events, b) future events or c) imaginary events – stuff that doesn't exist anymore / yet / at all – and I do this over and over again without achieving any new insights with any of the recurring thoughts.
• A point I noticed while walking long distances was impatience. When there is some reason for me to feel impatient to “be there already” (e.g. be home already because I am hungry and I have food waiting for me) I escape my moment-to-moment living into the mind as described above, as if to distract myself from the discomfort that is here (such as hunger) to get me “faster” to my goal/destination. Even though this method makes it seem as if “time goes faster” because I momentarily become unaware of myself and the discomfort my physical body is experiencing, I actually sabotage myself because when and as I distract my attention from my body's actual needs I lock myself into a state of tension. For example, when I am walking outside and it is cold, if I distract myself to not be aware of the coldness and instead ”float around” in a mind bubble, my body will still experience the coldness and be in a state of tension as I am not giving my body any attention. Instead I could be aware of the experience of coldness, keep myself in deep and slow breathing and relax my body with each breath, through this assisting and supporting my body to survive the cold. I have noticed through experimenting that when I relax myself within an uncomfortable experience, it actually becomes less uncomfortable (e.g. cold feels less cold) – I'm guessing it has something to do with how blood flows in muscles (tense vs. relaxed).

Alright. I will now walk these points and see what comes of it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe so that I have not noticed the physical pain in my body caused by a bad posture before the pain gets bad enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore my body telling me that the posture I am in is damaging to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I “need to” study at the expense of my physical body because there are “no better options”, not realizing that I am causing myself extensive damage and making my studying more difficult in the long run, and that there is sure to be some option that I just haven't figured out yet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on trying to find a physically painless way to study and instead settle for positions that are not good for my health.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that pushing myself to study through pain is self-sabotage, as the pain will eventually render me unable to study.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my discomfort into the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my experience being uncomfortable with fear and thus create a desire to no longer be there, thus fulfilling this desire by escaping my experience into a mind illusion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to discomfort with the fear of not being able to handle it, believing and perceiving that physical discomfort is something “overwhelming”, not realizing that physical discomfort can in fact be dealt with simply by breathing, locating the problem and taking necessary actions to solve the problem.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to no realize that when in discomfort, the simple act of breathing and bringing my awareness to the pain is to gift myself with the attention that I actually require, and that escaping the discomfort by not breathing and distracting myself with thoughts/images is to neglect myself and ignore the needs of my physical body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my uncomfortable experience of the physical reality into the mind as thoughts and imaginations of the past and future, thus losing myself into what is not actually HERE and neglecting that which is actually HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a thought/image is “more enjoyable” than my experience of the actual reality and that this enjoyability is a valid reason to escape the reality, not realizing that the enjoyment in the mind is temporary and fades and that every moment spent away from HERE brings consequences: if I shut my eyes while driving a car, every moment spent driving with my eyes closed might take me off the road.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the enjoyment within/of the mind / the conceptual reality always fades, whereas enjoyment within/of this physical reality is sustainable.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become impatient with the cause of my physical discomfort (cold, rain, hunger, tiredness) and to escape the discomfort by thinking of the moment when I will get rid of it (by getting home, getting to a shelter, getting food, getting to rest etc.), and thus “mend” my impatience by imagining I'm “there already” or by telling myself I'm “almost there”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my physical needs need to be “soothed” with imagination or otherwise they will overpower me, not realizing that if I am not actually dying my physical needs cannot in fact overpower me by themselves, and that my experiences and memories of a physical need becoming “overwhelming” are such where I have made it “overwhelming” through the mind with enhancing thoughts such as “I am so hungry/cold”, “I am in so much pain”, “this sucks”, “I hate this”, “I'm so far away from home”, “why can't I be there already”, “this feels awful” et cetera, where I have eventually been overpowered by my own helplessness and not the problem itself.

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I commit myself to keep myself in breath before, during and after I study (read text from a book / computer screen OR write on a notepad / computer) to keep my awareness in my physical body and to thus ensure that no painful point – message from my body, the living organism – goes unnoticed.

• Before I study, I commit myself to find myself a comfortable position to study in.
• During studying, I commit myself to take note of any pain I might feel and to adjust my posture/position accordingly, making sure that I get up and move around every 15 minutes.
• After studying, I commit myself to pay attention to the remaining effects of the physical act of studying in my body.

I commit myself to show myself that I am capable of surviving non-lethal physical discomfort, such as hunger, tiredness and changes in temperature, by returning myself to breath whenever I escape the physical reality into my mind and by keeping myself stable and relaxed in breath until the problem can be solved.

When and as I create dramatic thoughts about my state of discomfort – such as “I am so hungry/tired/cold” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that with these thoughts I give in to helplessness, believing and perceiving that I am powerless to direct the situation to the best possible outcome. I realize that the reality is not in fact dramatic as everything moves according to simple causality (if I do not eat, I will eventually get hungry) and that within a reality of causality there is always also some kind of a course of action available that will work as a solution to undesired circumstances (when I go home, I will eat food). I stabilize myself in breath, search for an actual solution to the problem, and I keep myself stable until the problem is resolved.

I commit myself to explore how to find comfort in discomfort through breathing, relaxing and taking care of my basic physical needs.

Alright, I'll continue with more related points tomorrow.

Days 352-354: Alcohol

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Since I am currently on my way to an event that will probably include drinking alcohol, I thought it fitting to address my issue with drinking that has surfaced recently.

I grew up in an environment that encouraged drinking alcohol, and although everyone knew that legally I shouldn't have been drinking before I turned 18, I was pretty much allowed to start drinking when it started to interest me. My older siblings and even parents would buy me drinks if I asked them to: I never asked for anything “too much”, and for them my behavior was normal, what kids my age were doing anyway.

I got “into” drinking when I was about 15-16 and my group of high school friends started forming. For me drinking was a social thing: I enjoyed parties, their exciting, adventurous and carefree atmosphere, and I was thrilled to be meeting people, because I had learned that apparently relationships mostly formed in parties when people are a little drunk (less tense and defensive / more welcoming and appealing). When I look back on it I can see that my reason for partying was mostly sex/relationships, although sometimes it was to feel like I “belonged” somewhere, to feel “connected” to people, and to be less lonely.

After high school I got alienated from my friends and so the social environment I used to drink in was no longer there. My group of friends changed while my income decreased heavily, and because my new friends were always drinking in bars and night clubs I could no longer financially afford to drink socially. I quit drinking through bitterness and it created a nasty undertone to my friendships.

I later realized real reasons to not drink: it's damaging to my physical health AND to my mental condition. For many years I have not really been drinking because I have always been low on money and I have been too busy to fit that kind of socializing into my life.

Now that these limitations (money and time) have been removed, since my income is decent and I have time and opportunities to socialize, I've noticed that I am very prone to drinking. I realize that this is a problem, because the reasons for my drinking are the same as they were when I was 16: relaxing, fitting in and being social. When asking myself “why do I drink” just now, my answer was: “Because I can.” Now I am “finally” able to drink alcohol, and for a while I've just been going with it because of the energetic release of “having access” to something that used to be inaccessible.

But as I am now continuing to write this after the night of drinking I mentioned, I know that this tendency to use alcohol as a way to “unwind” has got to stop. What I witnessed in myself was a relaxation, opening up and talkativeness when I was drinking (like, after two sips of wine, lol – completely a mental thing) with my tension returning twice as bad the following day. The points of nervousness that I bypassed with alcohol were there just the same when I had to face them sober.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape anxiety, tension and nervousness into drinking because when growing up I learned through observation and direct advice that this is what people do and how people live.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a habit of rather escaping anxiety, tension and nervousness than directly dealing with their starting point, because as a child this is what I witnessed the people around me doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a behavioral pattern / a habit out of drinking as an escape from anxiety, tension and nervousness because when I first tried it out it appeared to “work” (when getting drunk for the first time I gave myself the permission to “let loose”, which I misinterpreted to have been caused by the substance itself) and so I continued to do so whenever I wanted to feel relaxed, energetic and excited.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make alcohol the symbol of “fun”, not realizing that by doing so I limit myself from having “fun” without alcohol and make the experience of “fun” dependent on alcohol.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child/teenager to create an image of alcohol in my mind – an icon / a symbol – that represented “fun”, “enjoyment”, “relaxation”, “friends”, “leisure”, “good times”, “excitement” and “adventure”, not questioning this positively charged image/icon/symbol even when I saw myself and others manifest the complete opposite when drunk – aggression, depression, hallucinations, violence, regression, physical poisoning, fighting – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the actual consequences of mine and my friends' reasons for drinking alcohol just to hold onto the positive image of alcohol as the “ultimate release”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to celebrate (to express my gratitude over something) - be it a finished task, the people in my life or life events - I need to drink alcohol.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that one of the reasons I feel compelled to drink alcohol when I'm doing something social is because to me socializing is often a form of celebration (expressing my gratitude/appreciation for the people that are there), which I have learned to connect with the culture of drinking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how vast the culture of drinking alcohol is and that unraveling this habit from myself is a lengthy task.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that alcohol is a “bad” thing and judge myself and others accordingly, not realizing that the substance itself is neither good or evil because it is just a tool, a conveyor of the intentions behind the use of the substance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge others for using alcohol because I have assumed that their intentions to use it are destructive (escapism).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that alcoholism will exist whether I judge it or not, and that if my goal is to affect the existence of alcoholism, judgement doesn't really help me get anywhere.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the world and its phenomenons will exist no matter what I think of them within my mind, and that the way to affect the world is not through the conceptual reality (judgement) but through the physical reality (actions).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge those who drink alcohol as escapism (almost everyone) because I have held onto my self-judgement and projected it onto others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for drinking alcohol because based on the consequences of my drinking (conflict, mistakes, embarrassment) I have labeled drinking as “bad”, not realizing that it is not alcohol or even the act of drinking that creates the negative consequences but MYSELF, because alcohol releases from me all of the things I would like to express but normally suppress, which makes WHO I AM within the act of drinking the cause for all the consequences of the action itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that drinking alcohol makes me stupid, annoying, reckless, loud, vicious, desperate and depressed, not realizing that alcohol simply brings out who I already am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge the qualities listed above as “no good” (qualities I do not want attached to “who I am” / my personality / the image of me that others see), and to thus judge myself when and as these hidden/suppressed qualities eventually surface.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to deny these dimensions of myself / of human expression, not realizing that in order to release them and truly make a choice to either live or not live out these dimensions I need to first embrace them all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as long as I judge myself for a dimension of human expression (such as being loud), I will not be able to fully let it go.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that drinking alcohol makes me happy, joyful, laughing, energetic, excited, horny, social, funny and elevated, not realizing that I have already been all this on some level but used alcohol to emphasize these dimensions of human expression to override the negative.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use alcohol to get high on positive energy, not realizing that I am escaping the reality where I do not feel OK with myself into a temporary illusion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the illusion of self-elevation created when drunk dissolves easily when the pattern of being drunk is broken.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a mind pattern of a “successful night of drinking”, where the chain of alcohol is uninterrupted, I do not react negatively to anything and I have pleasant people around me all night – not realizing that when I expect my night to go like this the night is easily “ruined” (the energy high crashes) even with a small disturbance.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like a night is “ruined” because I reacted negatively to something.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like the memory of an otherwise fun evening is “ruined” because of something negative that happened at the end of the night.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in drinking to create “nice memories”, not realizing that this starting point itself holds the expectation that the evening as a whole should go “according to plan” so that the memory would be unspoiled, and that having an expectation like this is simply unrealistic because of the numerous factors included in an event that concerns several people, if in a bar maybe even hundreds.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that drinking should be fun, thus reacting when it is not fun, not realizing that my expectation itself is unrealistic and that having an expectation on any social event doesn't really serve any purpose as the events can't really be foretold.

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I commit myself to investigate why my life feels tense / unfulfilling so that there is a need for “unwinding” through alcohol-related socializing.

I commit myself to walk through the above-mentioned tension points in writing to see how to release them in order to make life truly and sustainably enjoyable (“fun”) in every single breath.

I commit myself to stop drinking alcohol for now to see how it affects social situations where I would usually drink (e.g. celebration).

I commit myself to be patient with myself concerning this point as I see, realize and understand that I have grown within a culture of drinking and that the culture is thus embedded into me in multiple layers.

I commit myself, in my occupation as an alcohol vendor, to investigate how alcohol as a tool is being used, and instead of judging alcohol itself as “good” or “bad” to look at how and why alcohol is being used.

I commit myself to utilize my position as a bartender to discuss alcohol with other people.

I commit myself to go through memories of differing consequences of my alcohol use and to map out how these consequences have manifested who I was during that time.

When, as and if I do drink alcohol, I commit myself to investigate the dimensions of human expression that arise in me and to investigate them thoroughly in writing to see why I suppress and deny these dimensions in myself.

I commit myself to investigate what kind of expectations I set on different kinds of social situations.

This was a box of worms, whew! Lol, I'm glad to see this point finally opening up, as I've been meaning to focus on it many times before. I'll continue with this later on.

Day 351: What is friendship?

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I had a discussion with a friend and I was left restless.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing a friend.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make myself dependent of another being and thus fear losing her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I fear losing is not the person itself but what she represents to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that only one person can ever be whatever it is she represents to me and that if I lose her I lose what she represents.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, through our shared history and my experiences with and of this person, to paint an icon within my mind with her shape, representing integrity, intelligence, good will, purity and commitment – the “back bone” I've never perceived myself to have – and to create a relationship to that icon where I “lack” what the icon represents and where I “need” the icon to have a “back bone” in my life – and as this icon is based on my interpretation of a real, living person, to want this person to be in my life / fear not having this person in my life because I believe and perceive that without her I am unable to have those good qualities she represents.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I am “unable” to have integrity, intelligence, good will, purity and commitment in myself because building and growing these qualities is hard work, thus giving up and making myself helpless because I have relied on others to “fill in the gaps” where I choose to believe I am “not good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to gather the kind of people around me who have what I lack, not utilizing that chance to learn from them and develop new traits, but instead abusing their company by expecting them to “cover for me” where I am unwilling to develop myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing a long-time friend because to me my relationship with her represents commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork – the kind of a relationship I would prefer to have with others as well, but haven't yet had that many chances to practice in long-term.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing this friendship because losing it would tell me that nothing lasts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hope that this friendship would last so that the illusion of permanence would remain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing the fact that everything is temporary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that within this physical life I am the only permanent factor – the “eye” of the storm – and that everything around me (and within me!) is in constant flux, as if spinning in a tornado.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for stability from outside of myself, not realizing that if I hold onto something spinning within that tornado (all the components of life) I will fall from balance – the eye of the storm – and that the only sustainable way to balance myself is to find balance within and as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork are NOT dependent on the individuals I interact with but on WHO I AM within interaction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that when and as WHO I AM is in accordance with commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork, I will create these qualities no matter who I interact with, and that I will thus never lack these qualities in my living as long as I incorporate them into my structure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely on a few relationships to sustain commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork in my life, not looking for ways to learn how to sustain them by myself within myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my words will insult another, which would result in me “losing” her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I might “lose” my friend by saying something she will react to in such a way where she will decide to keep a “safe” distance to me to avoid further unpleasant reactions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my friend will use her reactions to my words to paint an image of me in her mind (a classification, stereotype, “this is who she is”) which would limit her in my presence and/or create a resentment towards me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel annoyed by the possibility that my friend will become alienated because it would be based on an unfair judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being misinterpreted by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being denied access to life's resources (here: friendship) because of who others perceive and believe me to be, as this is how the world of relationships mainly functions at the moment: access granted or denied based on who one is believed to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust the fact that the (only?) way to correct those who have decided to see me through a certain filter is to live as who I am and show who I am through my living, my words, movements and actions – and that even then others might choose to not see, which I cannot affect as I cannot enter and move another being, but only myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my words might have been chosen poorly, not realizing that if I would have stopped to re-write my experience from the starting point of not wanting to aggravate the other, my actions would have been manipulation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider limiting my self-expression because I fear that the other would blame her reactions to “my” words onto me. (The words aren't really mine, even though the intent I use them with is; a symbol is just a symbol and can be interpreted in many ways.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though the careful placement of words (directing and manipulating the other's assumed reactions) might be necessary in some situations – such as when playing the political game this world is immersed in - I do not want to build my friendships (or any relationships!) into such places where I'd need to be constantly walking through a mine field.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear building my friendships into places of unsuppressed self-expression by expressing myself unsuppressed within them, because I have feared that others will react negatively to this unconventionality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I act out of fear (choose my words so that the other will not react negatively) I will create fear (by upholding a relationship that is based on comfort instead of actual support).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that telling the other what they want to hear is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that downplaying another's flaws is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that giving praise on another's strengths is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that agreeing with another because I fear disagreement (conflict / possibility of loss) is NOT supportive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that avoiding conflict is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that actual support is based on helping each other to grow towards our full potential, and that actual support is NOT pleasant and comfortable but is in fact difficult, challenging and, mostly, full of conflict and disagreement which needs to be constantly processed and sorted out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear when a friendship gets to the point where supporting each other gets very challenging, not realizing that I (as we both) have all the tools, capacity and the will to agree on how and why we support each other, and that my fear of loss is just me lifting my hands in the air and saying “I can't do it! Too much! It's gonna crash!” and succumbing to helplessness when in fact I am not helpless to direct the situation – as if I was driving a car, seeing a tree some miles up the road, lifting my hands from the wheel and saying “No use, it's gonna hit anyway!”, when I could in fact just place my hands on the wheel and direct the car to not hit the tree. lol

I commit myself to explore what I find respectable, admirable and praiseworthy in my friend to see what I could develop in myself.

I commit myself to note and write down the qualities that I find respectable, admirable and praiseworthy in others and to reflect them upon myself to see how I could develop in these qualities.

I commit myself to explore how to build relationships from the very first moment and every moment from then onwards based on self-expression, commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork.

I commit myself to re-assess my current relationships to see if they are in fact based on self-expression, commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork, and I commit myself to find ways to introduce the qualities that are missing into each relationship through my own application, not by demanding others to do shit.

I commit myself to support and assist myself with the commitment above with writing.

I commit myself to work on releasing my fears, so that when I give support to others it would not be an act of fear but an act of simply being.

349-350: Why write?

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I have had trouble with daily writing ever since June. Back then I was backpacking in Asia and Oceania for a few months, and ever since I left I faced increasing troubles keeping up with the writing rhythm I had started building for myself 10 months prior. I think it was in Japan where I started to “give up” every other day or so, and I felt really guilty for doing it, which exposed my fear of not being accepted / being excluded if I did not keep up the writing rhythm I had committed to. This showed me that I had not made the commitment to write purely for myself but that a part of the decision had been fueled by the need to belong to a group and be recognized as someone “worthy” for the group.

I continued to write every other day or so, being preoccupied by whatever was going on while I was traveling and worn out by the constant instability of my environment. Before the journey I committed myself to use writing as a method of keeping myself stable regardless of my environment, and to that purpose I mainly utilized it, clearing myself out to survive my day-to-day. This experiment showed me the fact that if a being is lacking in basic needs (shelter, nutrition) there simply is no energy left for any kind of “self-development”.

Something changed when I came back home. I am not sure if it is me perceiving my environment to be stagnant (which it isn't – it just isn't changing from one extreme to the other in the matter of days or hours) or maybe the fact that the professional projects and self-development tasks that I'm working on are to be finished in long-term (I'm talking lifelong stuff here). Somehow it feels as if things are “going nowhere” even though they are; it's just so gradual that sometimes it's difficult for me to see the relevance. A part of this experience may also be true, because as I have explored some points in private writings, I see that I still expect things to just “happen” to me instead of me actively creating them and making them happen. So in ways I am stagnant, whereas in some ways I perceive myself to be stagnant.

It has been difficult for me to keep up the daily writing, and sometimes I have only written once or twice a week. I have seen the results in my living. I am confused with myself, I am less structured, I don't know what I'm experiencing, I don't seem to be making any progress, I don't see much practical change. When I started with this project of writing about a year ago I was going through a crisis phase when I had A LOT to go through, many things to write about, many potential growth points opening up – and thus it also felt like I was achieving a lot through writing. Now that my life is not in a crisis (as I have learned how to prevent myself from messing up my life, lol) and things seem all smooth and fine, I am not as motivated to write, because I don't see the point. It's like I already believe myself to be “enlightened”, which I know to not be true, oh god no, lol. Because I am less bothered by my fuck-ups in my everyday life I don't really spot them unless I specifically attempt to do so.

And this is exactly why it would benefit me to go through the effort of writing every day, be it just a tweet, a short description of what I went through or an assignment in my DIP Lite course. What I struggle with here is self-criticism. Even now I have decided to not publish what I have been writing yesterday and today because I thought that the text was just not “good enough”. I have already written a little about my self-expectations concerning this blog (the length, structure and content of a blog post) and I know that these expectations limit me from 1) expressing my experience in writing as it is because I expect my self-expression to fit into a specific format, and 2) publishing the text because I fear that others will judge it for not being in a specific format.

Another thing is that I have created a resistance towards writing self-forgiveness. Whenever I write something and face the point where all I have left to do is SF, it's like I face a wall where writing myself out feels like a huge burden that I just can't be bothered to do. This is where I have made a structural pattern a burdensome “must”, when in fact the structure is there to support me to have clarity within and of myself. Whenever I do write (or speak) SF, I feel lighter afterwards, as if there'd been some kind of a release. I don't know if reminding myself of the “reward” during moments of resistance would help me through: they might as well just cause me to expect to feel relieved, ending up in disappointment of there was no relief after writing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, while traveling and being on a “holiday”, to create a pattern where I justified myself “slacking off”, “letting loose”, “taking it easy”, “relaxing”, “not worrying” and “resting” with the fact that I had worked so hard the preceding months.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to work myself towards exhaustion and burn-out, not realizing that as I “tipped the scale” to the other extreme it would eventually tip to the other extreme as well, and that I am NOW facing the consequences of how I worked a year ago – I am reaping what I sowed – as powerlessness, unwillingness, lack of motivation and self-centeredness (comfort-orientation as opposed to the discomfort I went through while working my ass off).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the consequences of my actions will follow me in long-term.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have already had enough rest (the polarities have balanced out), and that if I do not get myself moving I will stagnate within the belief that “I can't”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to write for an “audience” to seek for acceptance instead of writing for myself to find self-acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to confuse public writing to be such where I seek for a response, not realizing that public writing can be an act of expressing and sharing myself that is valid in itself even without a response.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my self-expression is valid only if it gets a positive response, not realizing that self-expression (me standing within myself and moving myself within and as self-honesty) is valid in itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a validation for my self-expression because I have not been OK with “who I am” (who I see myself to be within the act of self-expression) – because I have judged myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have not wanted to face myself in self-honesty and accept who I am now as the reality that is, to seek for validation for who I have presented myself to be in public writings, feeling “energized” upon receiving validation and feeling confused and frustrated upon not receiving validation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the amount of comments and +1's to validate the “me” I present within a blog post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not write about things that I fear admitting to, not realizing that it is those points exactly that I should be writing about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge and deny what I see of myself and thus refuse to write about it, admit to it, accept it, stand as who I am now and share what I have seen and learned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to forgive myself (release) I first need to apologize to myself (expose).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I am scared to talk publicly about a point, I shouldn't push myself to do so, as this is a sign that I have not really apologized to myself (exposed myself, admitted to who I am, stood within my flaws), forgiven myself (self-acceptance, release) nor made a commitment (decision to move).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on writing on days when and as I have believed and perceived myself to have been “too tired” or “too busy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not plan my schedule to include daily writing and to thus already decide in the morning (or even days before!) that I am not going to write, thus in the evening giving myself excuses such as “I'm too tired to write now” or “I don't have time for this now” to feel as if my planned laziness was justified.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that instead of allowing my avoidance to end up with the same outcome every day I can prevent this by planning my days in such a way that leaves room for writing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my writings to my previous writings – or more specifically, to writings that I have received positive feedback from AND felt satisfied with myself – and thus make my current writings appear “less” in comparison to these older writings and judge myself for not reaching my standard.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have created the standard of a “good text” based on the experience that I had while/after writing it and the impact it had on my life, and not on the structure, length or coherence of the text itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the experience of release and relief whenever I write, not realizing that epiphanies don't just happen every day but need to be built through consistent work, and that even then they might never again feel as “overwhelming” as some of the realizations I have had while writing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to long for the feeling of having a big realization/release because I am not at ease within every moment of my living. (All the more reasons to keep on writing, then.)

I commit myself to write every day.

I commit myself to publish even a little bit of what I have written during the day, be it a short summary on my blog or a tweet on my twitter account.

I commit myself to plan my days in such a way that allows me to write, taking into consideration the writing circumstances (stability, peacefulness, time) and the writing methods (computer / pen and paper / video or voice logging).

I commit myself to explore and experiment with how to move myself when I stagnate, and I commit myself to write about moving myself through resistance.

I commit myself to utilize daily, weekly and monthly structuring to support myself to move myself.

I commit myself to embrace supportive routine and to explore how to make my current routines more functioning.

I commit myself to write for myself, writing from the starting point of “talking to a mirror” instead of “talking to a crowd”.

What helped me out when writing this was Joe's blog post, thanks for the support!

Day 348: Shooting the messenger

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A few days ago I faced a situation where criticism and blame was directed towards me. I realized that the person criticizing me (and others) was reacting to her interpretation of the situation, and so I didn't take it personally. I kept myself in breath and let her express her frustration. The situation ended with her dismissing her own reaction by saying “this is just who I am, I can't help it” and that she realizes that there is nothing actually wrong with the situation at hand.

Because of her own attitude it would be easy for me to just say “yup, that's how it is” - to pass all the responsibility for another's reaction onto the other and dismiss whatever was going on. But I know that a part of what she is picking up from me and reacting to is actually there, although very slightly and well-hidden. What I found here is a pattern where “I don't have to listen” if the one delivering the message is reacting emotionally – when in fact the message might be true even though it's being delivered from an unclear starting point.

I did a lot of specific self-forgiveness on this, but because it includes other people and I couldn't really "mask" it into a neutral form, I am going to not publish some of it. However, I will share some of the key points.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order for me to participate in an activity there would have to be a goal and that if there isn't a goal I don't “have to” participate – not realizing that the goals are created within and through the activity itself during those times when there isn't a specific goal, and that me joining in only when there is a specific goal is to pass the responsibility for creating a goal completely onto the others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not participating in the goal creation, not realizing that I have simply made a choice to channel my attention onto things that are more certain to have a concrete outcome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel frustrated with a hobby that is “going nowhere”, not realizing that I have not really contributed to “taking it somewhere”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waste my time by participating in an activity “half-heartedly” - riding along but not contributing to creation and direction – not realizing that I would be better off either doing it with a full participation or not doing it at all and rather focusing on something else.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to arrange my life I need to make choices, and that sometimes those choices exclude one thing and include another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for choosing to not focus on [activity], not realizing that I have made this choice based on what I find relevant in life at the moment – a pretty solid decision - and that I am wavering from my decision through guilt because I fear that I will be judged for my decision by those who have chosen differently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear standing up for what I find essential in life as I have feared that others would take my stance personally and believe it to be judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge those who have prioritized their lives differently than I have mine, not realizing that people's life situations are very different, and that prioritizing [activity] might serve a relevant purpose in someone else's life (releasing energy, meeting friends, taking a break, getting exercise etc).

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the starting point of another as an excuse to not listen to what the person is saying.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a message from an unclear starting point – a dusty mirror – is just as much HERE than the same message from a clear starting point – a clean mirror – and that despite the source of the message I am able to “decode” it and thus reflect myself back to myself from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as a person reacts to me, to focus on their reaction – their “flaws” - instead of asking myself what it is they're picking up in me and reacting to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive others to be “flawed” to cover up for my own misgivings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the misgiving of another means that I have none.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to measure a situation based on each one's misgivings or “flaws” and to then dub each one as a “winner” or a “loser” (high or low status) based on the amount or severeness of one's flaws, not realizing that this “role play” directly affects my behavior and consequently the behavior of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to focus on the misgivings of another to move the focus away from my own misgivings, making the “flaws” of the other appear bigger than they are and making mine appear smaller than they are, not realizing that this is just a momentary illusion and that both of our “flaws” are in fact one and equal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a competition where, in order for me to not “lose”, somebody else has got to.

I commit myself to make a decision concerning my participation in this activity by the end of the year based on what contributing to this activity creates and upholds in this reality on the small as well as on the big scale: how it affects my life, how it affects the group members' lives, how it affects the group community, how it affects the town/area and how it affects the world – and at what expense.

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When and as another unmistakably reacts to me, be it a positive or a negative reaction, I commit myself to listen to what they're trying to express while also aware of their reactive state, asking myself “what is he/she reacting to” and searching myself for the trigger – NOT so that I would carry all the responsibility and blame myself for the reaction of another, but so that the responsibility for something equally created would be equally shared.

Day 347: Gender equality in relationships

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Which one's at the top? Does it even fucking matter?

I have recently come to face some conflict in my current relationship scheme. Basically the conflict is with me and another individual on the terms and principles of a relationship: how and why can a relationship be built here between me and this other – or whether it's better for both not to try and build one. This point became impossible to dodge when the relationship got more intimate, because I did not see it wise to participate in sex with another possessed by lust. Despite me knowing that I am doing “the right thing” by actively directing the situation, addressing what's going on and thus consequently also refusing to “go with the flow” (be on autopilot), I am faced with a fear of loss and abandonment as I challenge the relationship and direct the situation to an area of uncertainty. I am now here to walk through the fears that surfaced within me to assist and support myself to further direct the situation according to what is the best for all involved instead of being directed by my fear of ending up alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear ending this relationship because I would then have to start over with someone else and go through all the trouble of building the foundation for a relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that building the foundation of a relationship is “burdensome”, “difficult”, “stressful” and “tiresome”, not realizing that I am creating this experience by resisting all the things included in beginning a relationship (opening oneself up in self-honesty and being exposed as who I am; communicating about every aspect of the relationship).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist communicating about every aspect of a relationship openly in self-honesty because I have never learned to (I was never taught how to) do that and have to now push through the silent, non-communicative behavioral patterns I have learned instead.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent talking about every aspect of a relationship with another person because I am uncomfortable with most of the vocabulary involved as every word is Really Fucking Loaded with all kinds of emotions, feelings, images, memories, fears and expectations, which makes discharging the words by using them over and over again and thus releasing the energetic charge something that requires a lot of effort and stepping outside of my comfort zone frequently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I don't need to re-learn and claim all of my vocabulary in one go, but that it is in fact enough that I consistently do a little and push the edges of my comfort zone a little further – and that this process of learning how to communicate is nothing to fear as I am able to support and assist myself through the small steps that I am taking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent going through the process of “explaining myself” to another person – going through the process of familiarizing another with what my life is and has been like – not realizing that this process can be taken as an opportunity to look at self and re-assess the “big picture” of my life, and that not all of me has to be explained and specifically shown to the other, because a lot of the relevant stuff comes across without me even trying – in other words, the other is capable of picking up information just by observing me over time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent beginning new relationships “over and over again” because of the “trouble” I need to go through when getting familiar with a whole new person, and to thus fear the end of a relationship because it means my efforts have been “in vain” and that I am going to have to go through the same “trouble” again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I am wasting my time getting to know new people and not managing to create anything sustainable with them - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “ending up alone” (not having a partner and being too old to have children of my own) by wasting my time with the wrong people – not realizing that it is not necessarily the people that are “wrong for me” but my method of selecting the people I attempt to build relationships with and the way I conduct myself within these attempts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for being “wrong for me” and “wasting my time”, not realizing that it is ME who is wasting my time by not evaluating the situation according to self-honesty and directing it accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to the people I am in a relationship with and not want to end the relationship even though it seems the most reasonable choice, because I fear being alone again and not having all the support and comfort a relationship offers.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dramatize the situation by reacting with fear and despair to the practical choice of ending the relationship, thinking “oh no, then I'd be all alone again, sitting here in my flat all alone with no one to share my life with, woe the loneliness and grimness of my life” - not realizing that this is the case only if I choose to seclude myself again and not seek for social company elsewhere.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make ending a relationship appear bigger than it actually is by telling a story of my life where I am like a character in a book whose life I have no directive control over – not realizing that my life is NOT a story and that I DO have directive control over my life, which means that no life event is actually “big” on any other level than the practical level – within which in this case, there being no children, common activities or property involved, there would be very little practical changes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I would have to again go through the process of learning to be intimate with another (physically and mentally), going through the tension, release and relaxation, not realizing that this process is in fact becoming easier each time I do it with a new person, taking me closer to the goal of being able to be comfortably intimate with any living being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that trying out a new relationship that ends up not working out is a “waste of time”, not realizing that every time this happens I learn how to be more self-honest, straightforward and efficient about this process and learn valuable things about who I am at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that eventually I will be able to “scout” people efficiently enough to find someone who would be compatible with me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for “screwing up” every time a relationship doesn't work out, not realizing that I am learning through trial and error as within any learning process.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a woman is worth nothing without the ability for sex and reproduction.

• This is a point that came up when I refused to have sex and faced the (suppressed) disappointment and frustration of another. I knew it to be inevitable considering the energy possession the other was in, but despite this knowledge I was not prepared to face another exerting their experience on me. I took the reaction personally as I have done in all of my previous relationships when there have been situations where my participation in sex was in some way “not good enough”. There is this very clear image in my mind of a man turning his back to me in disappointment, this gesture telling me that I'm worth nothing and a disappointment to another, and it triggers a huge experience of self-hate and despair in me. This image has probably been ingrained in me through popular culture (TV, movies, music, video games, porn, literature) as well as through all of my experiences with men where the subtle hint of disappointment has been present when sex has somehow not been what it was expected to be. The history of mankind carries this positioning of men and women with it, and it is still very much visible even in us extremely civilized and educated scandinavian(/western/european) men and women.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to support the belief that women are worth nothing without sex by judging myself to be “not worthy” when a man appears disappointed when concerning sex with me.

• I am talking heteronormatively here even though I am open to intimacy with both sexes because this issue is linked specifically to men and masculinity; the point might be there with a masculine/dominant woman, but I wouldn't know that as I haven't come across such a situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for a confirmation that in this situation I would not be judged for not fulfilling the role of the sex puppet that I believe and perceive is expected of me, getting anxious, agitated, and nervous as that confirmation that would tell me that “I'm OK” is nowhere to be found.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my stability and sense of self-worth dependent on external validation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when the other will not discuss the situation with me despite my attempts to do so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that another has been in the relationship only for sex based on the “signs” I have picked up from his behavior, thus making myself feel like shit as I believe my self-judgement, not realizing that because of the gap in communication I do not actually know any of this because no such things have been directly expressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself based on guesswork.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself at all.

• At this point I had to pause my writing. I'd been struggling altogether just to breathe myself back to stability and pull myself through all the self-judgement, and when at this point I gave myself the kind of attention and care (words and gestures) that I would have wanted from men instead of being the target of disappointment, I broke into a kind of a purifying fit where I found intense hatred and rage towards men, as if a demon was released from within me. Shouting and crying it all out revealed a point of aggression I have never seen of myself before: a hatred and bitterness towards men and mankind – a regret that mankind has not been able to raise self-honest and stable people – a pity towards all the people who believe and perceive their desires to be the centre of the universe and act like big babies when denied what they want. I see that there is an unfair assumption in my mind about men. Because of what men have been I expect them to uphold it, and by expecting the worst out of men I support them to live out their worst.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame men for not seeing women as equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself as equal to men.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men I will not be “worth” it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself to be as “worthy” as men because men can override me with force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men I will face bad consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men, men will want to hurt me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I attempt to claim my position as equal to men without fully understanding what it means for two genders to be equal, I already judge myself to be “less than” men and cause my own downfall.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not believe that all people are one and equal regardless of gender because I do not believe that who I am is enough to compete with male force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I would need to be a man to be equal to men – that I would need force to beat force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it's not about a competition between the genders – femininity vs. masculinity – but about balancing out the polarity that is currently overriding with the other polarity and through the merging of both finding an equilibrium of humanity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that femininity – whatever the fuck that is – is not “strong enough” to balance out the masculinity in psychosis.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not appreciate and give credit to femininity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not appreciate the femininity in me – the opposite of being “strong”, “powerful”, “fast”, “efficient”, “dominant”, “successful” and a “winner” - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing and utilizing the opposite of masculinity in me – gentleness, negotiability, care, listening, sensitivity, mercy, patience, compassion, expressiveness – because I have believed and perceived that in a world system the rules of which have been dictated by men I would “not make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “make it” in the world because I have believed and perceived that the world system exists for my benefit and that “surviving” in the race would make my life better – not realizing that the world system where “dog eats dog” and everyone's competing with each other is not fact designed to support all life – and that “making it” in the world system is thus trivial as the world system is a lie.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that while exposing and utilizing my femininity and balancing out both polarities within me might not get me anywhere in the world system, it will get me everywhere in life itself.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret a man's gestures based on the expectation that men only appreciate sex, thus believing and perceiving everyone I have come across to have been disappointed about sex in a more or less passive-aggressive way, not realizing that in all cases I cannot actually be sure of this as disappointment was not directly expressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect men to only appreciate sex and thus build a world-view where everything I have seen and interpreted supports this image in my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to support men to only appreciate sex by expecting them to do so, through my behavior relaying the message that “this is who you are, right?”.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate men for being fucked up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what men need to no longer be fucked up is not hatred but compassion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame men for being fucked up, not realizing that the men did not raise themselves but were raised by this world when they were young and helpless, and that the men cannot be blamed for becoming fucked up, even though it is men's responsibility to no longer uphold what they have become but to question and redirect themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not support men to outgrow the masculinity possession the world is in by expressing forgiveness, compassion and mercy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it's a really fucking difficult task to outgrow a few millennia's worth of behavioral patterns and that men need all the support they can get to do it, as well as do women.

• I do realize that the situation has not been created and upheld simply by men but also by women: compliance may have been a survival mechanism, but it has still contributed to the problem at hand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not support women to outgrow the masculinity possession the world is in, as there are plenty of women in addition to myself who have tried to “make it” by becoming men (neglecting the feminine).

• I need to hang out with women more.

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Okay. How to bring this back to the original point? The moment where I go into self-doubt and fear of abandonment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the reaction of another personally as I have believed and perceived that I am the cause of the reaction, not realizing that who I am simply triggers an existing pattern in the other, which is something the other has created and not me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn to take this “disappointment in sex” reaction personally because I have had very few situations where the other would have been completely OK with sex not happening the way it's “supposed to”, therefore never getting the model of how the situation could be directed differently – never seeing, realizing and understanding how the disappointment would not be blamed fully on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another will blame his negative experience (disappointment) on me and that I would thus be unfairly judged.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that sex has been the “deal breaker” in all of my relationships, not realizing that there have been many other factors contributing to the relationship not being sustainable, most notably my complete inability to communicate and direct myself - points which have just been most exposed within sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret the words and gestures of another to mean that he did not understand his experience of disappointment to have been caused by himself, not realizing that I cannot know this until it has been directly expressed, no matter how educated a guess I can make based on body language and tonality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to (within my mind) demand for a reply from the other because I have been frustrated and nervous and wanted to clear things out to have certainty and stability – not realizing that the other might need time to process on his own what has been said so far, and that my sense of stability is in no way dependent on the other, even though certainty of “what is going on” is dependent on him communicating with me.

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I commit myself to not wait around for a reply from X and to thus stagnate in uncertainty, but to instead direct myself in every breath of my living to utilize and enjoy my life the best I can.

I commit myself to write about whatever points of fear, uncertainty and instability I may come across while breathing and moving myself out of this state of self-judgement into self-support.

I commit myself to support and assist X in whatever ways I can to become the best he can be.

I commit myself to slow down and express myself as clearly as possible to support and assist X to understand what I am trying to discuss, as a lot of the vocabulary and concepts that I use are new to him.

I commit myself to be patient with myself within the process of learning to build functioning relationships.

I commit myself to utilize the company of the women in my life to look for and investigate the femininity in them.

I commit myself to support myself to embrace femininity by spending time with feminine women – the exact kind of women I usually resent.

I commit myself to grow myself into a being that is a living example of humanity: femininity and masculinity combined.