Day 372: Taking angry reactions personally

27122013

During the christmas holidays I was spending time with my family, and while we were busy cooking I noticed something interesting about my relationship towards my sister. There was a pan that I would have needed for cooking something and she had already used it for something else, to which I reacted by indirectly and jokingly blaming her for it. She reacted to my words with an angry and defensive manner, which is how she usually reacts to (unexpected / unprepared for) criticism, blame and accusations. I have usually taken her defensive reactions personally and questioned her tendency for being so aggressive, mainly because her reaction has felt threatening to me. But now as I was looking back on the situation I realized how and why she has developed the habit of violently defending herself (a history of bullying and low self-esteem). I realized that me taking her reaction personally is not really helping her at all and is just adding fuel to the fire. I see that in order for me to be of support to her and assist her in stabilizing and seeing her own tendencies I need to stop counter-reacting to her reactions and see them for what they are: remnants of a fearful past that need not be any longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my sister's aggression personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to my sister's aggression because I have perceived and believed aggressive people to be dangerous.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my sister's aggression means that she thinks less of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my sister's aggression has nothing to do with me and that her aggression is in fact her expression of who she is at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for my sister's approval / acceptance, thus reacting with fear when it appears as if she does not approve / accept me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my interpretation of my sister's aggression is not in fact true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my sister's aggression with irritation (“she's doing it again”) and to blame her for my irritation (“she shouldn't do that”), not realizing that I create my irritation by thinking that her reaction is “wrong”, as I have not seen, realized and understood that her reaction is an outflow of who she has become, and that it is not “wrong” or “right” but simply an indicator of who she is at the moment, an outburst of the reality we live in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label “wrong” all the things in my reality that “ruin the world” for me – that do not fit the ideal image of the world that I have built in my mind – as by labeling them “wrong” I create an excuse to remove these things from the reality.

When and as my sister (or anyone) expresses aggression, I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that her reaction is an outflow of who she has become through everything that she has went through in her life. I remind myself that to be of assistance and support to her I cannot exert my own reaction onto her, but that I need to instead let go of all my reactions through self-forgiveness and breathing and become a stable point in her field of experience.

When and as I react to my sister's (or anyone's) aggression, I stop, I breathe and I immediately focus on my breathing to ground and stabilize myself in the physical reality. I remind myself that in order to support the other I need to let go of my own reactions. I remind myself that my sister's reaction is not caused by me and that it is an outflow of everything she has accumulated during her lifetime. I breathe and release my reaction in self-forgiveness. I take another look at the situation from her perspective and I direct myself in the situation according to what would possibly be supportive to her.

I commit myself to practice becoming a stable point for others.

Day 371: Dissolving an emotion: remnants of a panic disorder

26122013

Yesterday I watched a movie which was really shocking and heavy for me to experience. After the movie I had to cry and speak to express some of the emotion that had gathered onto my chest, but for some reason this was not enough. I felt as if I wanted to curl up, be held, be comforted, block out my surroundings. For a while I played along with this desire, seeking for the closeness of another person. But then I started to realize the emotion was still there and blocking me. I started to describe out loud how I felt and I realized that my entire body was collapsing around the weight in my chest. I tried to physically straighten myself up, stand up, open my chest, and I couldn't do it, it was too heavy: as soon as I stood up I wanted go back into hiding, and as I forced myself to stand I could do nothing but moan and breathe.

What helped here was that I allowed myself to curl up into a comfortable spot, which is where I started to go through the reactions I had had towards what was shown in the movie. I used self-forgiveness to face the reasons for my reactions, many so intimate that I can rarely talk about them to anyone. As I went through the reactions I would go through the emotions again, the wave of energy crashing over me, but this time as I went through the specific trigger points the emotions actually dissolved. I focused on my breathing and little by little straightened myself up when opening my chest no longer felt unbearable.

What I realized here is that when I feel heavy emotions (which happens quite rarely) I have a tendency to allow myself to seek for comfort and brush the emotions aside instead of dealing with them directly. For example, when emotions accumulate into my chest, I just want to curl up and be comfortable.

I now see and realize that I have a habit of ignoring heavy emotions for the sake of comfort and that to continue with the habit is to suppress myself and not utilize emotions as indicators of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I feel negative emotions in my chest area, to follow that energy and curl up my body around my chest area as if to protect, crystallize and lock in the emotions that I feel.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the fact that I respond to heaviness in my chest by curling up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape the emotions by curling up instead of facing and embracing them by straightening up and opening my chest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing my emotions because I have feared that they would be “too much” for me; that I would not be able to handle the pain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to magnify and worsen emotions through my thoughts when and as they are experienced – thinking “oh no, this is so horrible” etc. - thus “fueling the fire” and making an emotion last longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that an emotion is but energy within my body which can be released once seen and understood.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to deal with emotions, not realizing that the process of walking through an emotion is something I already know: to recognize, pinpoint and identify the emotion, to find the appropriate ways of physically expressing and venting out the emotion and to release the emotion by embracing it through self-forgiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not be able to dissolve an emotion and accumulate this fear into a panic, thus losing control of my breath (hyperventilation) and locking myself into an emotional clusterfuck (a panic attack that wears out as I run out of stamina).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that as long as I keep myself to the basics (breathing, movement, speech/writing) I will be able to walk my way through anything.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that the reason I developed a panic disorder around the age of 16 (which continued for years to come) was most likely because of pent up emotions that I did not know how to express or did not want to face.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn to hide and suppress my emotions as a child because within my family dynamics I felt as if there was no room for my emotions as it already seemed chaotic enough to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to harm myself by suppressing myself and collapsing inwards for the sake of a sense of balance and harmony within my family.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a habit of curling up to hide my emotions from myself as well as from others.

When and as I see myself physically curling up, I stop, I breathe and I check myself for emotions and energies, both in the body and the mind. If there is emotion/energy within me, I focus on my breath and try to open up my physique. I investigate the trigger/reaction points that have started the emotion/energy and I use self-forgiveness if necessary to release the emotion/energy. I slow down in breath and I continue with this for as long as it takes for the emotion/energy to dissipate.

I commit myself to investigate how I suppress myself emotionally in my current living.

Day 370: SF on Sex & the fear of failure

21122013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 369: Sex & the fear of failure

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “good sex” (success) and “bad sex” (failure) as ideas of what sex is / can be, not realizing that these ideas are not actually real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “good sex” as such where all participants are satisfied according to their expectations about sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the expectations I have / others have about sex, or the fact that we expect anything out of sex at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “bad sex” as such where not all participants are satisfied according to their expectations about sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the phenomenon of having expectations about sex in the form of ideals, fantasies, images, plans and assumptions, thus believing the disappointment when sex is unsatisfactory/bad/failed and the satisfaction when sex is good/successful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when/as I have felt like the sex I've had has been successful I have in fact created the experience myself through my expectations and that no such thing as “doing sex right” exists in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when/as I have felt that the sex I've had has been a failure I have in fact created the experience myself through my expectations and that no such thing as “doing sex wrong” exists in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are no right or wrong ways of having sex in the physical reality – unless one has a practical goal that needs to take the physical reality into consideration (such as reproducing, lol, then you don't really have that many options).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal of what sex “should be” like through the images I have been exposed to willingly and unwillingly through the media of the culture I have lived in (TV shows, movies, photography, fashion, magazines, literature, visual arts, music), not realizing that none of the images I believe to be sex is not in fact sex but an idea about sex – a conceptual painting of a dimension of the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when and as sex is what I have labeled as bad/unsatisfactory/failed, the consequence of this will be that my partner will be disappointed, blame me for their disappointment, judge me to be a failure and decide to invest their time on someone “better” than me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the fear of this trigger-reaction pattern based on the images I have been exposed to by the media, not realizing that this, too, is an idea about how people behave and what they expect of each other and not the actual reality of human behavior itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I can affect human behavior through my application within the moment of interaction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my partner leaving me because I have learned, believed and perceived that it would be a bad thing to be alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my belief that being alone is a bad thing, thus not realizing that both being single and being in a relationship have their own benefits and limitations – the conditions are simply different with differing opportunities available.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when sex is what I have labeled as good/satisfactory/successful my partner will be content, project their positive feelings on me and believe me to be the source of their satisfaction, believe me to be a worthwhile person and decide to continue to invest their time on me because I'm “better” than others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by always anticipating my partner's response to the “quality” of sex I keep the relationship a target of a constant gamble where the platform of the relationship is not stable at all as it has not been built on a mutual agreement but is instead based on competition.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create my relationships into a place of uncertainty and instability as I have believed and perceived that the relationship depends on my “success” in sex, thus building my tension, anxiety, fear, stress and pressure about sex and thus causing myself to very often “fail” in sex as I have been doing it through tension and fear for others instead of doing it relaxed and open for myself.

I commit myself to focus on communicating directly and self-honestly about sex with the people whom I have sex with, as I have seen, realized and understood that when and as I communicate about the things I fear their control over me dissolves, thus enabling practical correction.

I commit myself to explore sex through physical movement and the senses instead of the ideas I have about sex.

I commit myself to map out and walk through the ideas I have about sex – the conceptual reality of layered shit that I have piled on top of the simplicity of the physical reality.

Day 369: Sex & the fear of failure

19122013

The moon is used as a symbol of femininity in witchcraft - "The Moon" by Alphonse Mucha

I haven't been writing for a few days because I have been preoccupied by practical application. I am going through something very intense in my relationship towards another person and it's required most of my spare time and attention. I am / we are now starting to find some kind of a balance after the first few days of constant new underlying points popping up and being discussed, so I am now also getting back to writing. I am not sure what to write about, but I will probably try to make an overview of what I've been going through.

Okay, as I was making a list of all the points that have surfaced within the past few days, one point stood out as I noticed I was reluctant to look at it. I've been thinking a lot about how I perceive sex through a negative filter: I compare myself to people who think of sex as something fun and exciting (an ideal here maybe) whereas I am nervous, tense and outright scared. Whenever sex comes to play, it feels as if I shrink. All of my insecurities are magnified and I feel incredibly small and vulnerable. I know people (women) who have a completely different take on sex where they feel empowered through sex, strong and magnificent. Although, hang on. Have I ever heard them put it into words like that? I see that my vision of “who I should be” within sex might actually be yet another self-created illusion. Let's look into that.

A few years ago I got really into witchcraft, which is a very female-driven phenomenon. I read a lot of literature (fact and fictional) on the subject and got the idea that a woman can in fact enjoy sex on her own terms by embracing her femininity. I basically created this image of the sexually empowered witch woman – a magical creature – something “more” than who I was – someone with the extra “magic” or understanding about what sex is and how it works.

I'm guessing I have filtered my friends – the people who approach sex with a positive attitude – according to this ideal and imagined them to “already be there”, to have achieved that magical something which I haven't. I've made myself feel like a failure as I have believed I'd need to be something “more” when in fact what I'm looking for is something less.

What sex basically is is touch. What separates it from other kinds of touch is usually the involvement of genitalia and/or a sense of intimacy, being “unusually” close. Touching other people is fun to start with: it's a form of communication and play, a tool for creation. Through touch movement is created; in it's ultimate form, new life can be created. The thing is, sex isn't usually seen to be that simple. First off, it is though of as a “special” kind of a touch. This is one layer of shit placed over the simplicity of sex. Also, sex is highly visualized, separating the act from the other senses (touch, taste, hearing, smell) – another layer of shit. Sex is also valued as a trophy, it is demonized, it is used as currency, it's used to control – shit, shit, shit – the conceptual (imagined) reality of sex has become an entity of its own. Even under all these layers of shit, all the beliefs that we have painted over our reality, underneath all that sex is still primarily a touch. In any sex scenario I can conjure in my mind underneath the roles all I see is trembling flesh. It's all just vibrations and frequencies, the flesh in differing tempo and beat.

So: what is the conceptual reality I have painted over the simple physical reality of sex? What are the layers of shit I need to peel off to get to the null point?

I am basically afraid of failure. I think of sex as something I need to succeed in. I use it as a measuring point for my worth. I'm getting kind of sick and tired about this “I'm not good enough” -sentence that keeps on surfacing behind EVERY SINGLE POINT I ever walk through because I'm still not sure where the fuck it comes from. Perhaps I'm just a culmination of the kind of femininity that has submitted under (male) abuse and dominance for aeons. What has created me is all the men and women in my lineage – and that's such a shitload of people that I can't even begin to imagine what they were like. But I'm guessing the issues have always remained the same, so it's enough that I look at the little I know of my history. My history is the human kind's history.

The way my fear of failure manifests within sex is through a basic concept: the belief that sex has to be “good” (a definition containing an ideal) for my partner to be satisfied and not leave me (which implies that the reason I look for relationships is to not be alone, hence the fear of being abandoned). Therefore I'm never really having sex for myself, as an act of self-expression, but for others. There may be other aspects to this as well but this is what's surfacing right now. I'll continue tomorrow with SF on this point specifically.

Days 367-368: What would you do if you only had one day?

12-13122013

Nature showing us how to express affection. No fancy words needed!

Today I came to think of the phrase “live every day as if it was your last”. First I read a facebook post where a friend shared her realization about the unpredictability of life while supporting her friend in an emergency room: you'll never know when your loved ones will be gone forever, so you'd better tell them how you feel about them while you still can. Next, I saw a video where the average amount of a person's living days was visualized with jelly beans, and where at the end of the video only one jelly bean was left and the following question was asked: “what would you do if you had only one day? What will you do today?”

I answered that question myself and I was surprised at the things I said. (Personal stuff.) Mainly the things I thought I would do involved contacting people and enjoying my last moments doing things with them. I then asked myself: well, hold on, why should I not do these things anyway, even if I would not be dying? Couldn't I just call these people up anyway?

What I faced then was a wall of excuses. “They probably have better things to do.” “They'd think you're just wasting their time.” Most of it revolved around fear. The activities I thought of were purely recreational, and I was afraid that if I'd live my life asking people to join me in fun stuff like that I would be judged as lazy, impractical, childish, irresponsible – a foolish hippie not willing to work.

But MAN would I enjoy life where I could do fun stuff! With others!

So I'm thinking how my life would be different if I would express my feelings towards people more openly and initiate activities more frequently than now. It would certainly be a lot more social and my relations with others would be built on a foundation of self-honesty (which I think is the only way to establish solid trust in another). Why am I not doing this already?

I realize that motivational videos like the one I saw play a lot on the fear of death and loss: when the number of my days is clearly shown to me, I react with a slight panic and disregard my responsibilities just to “enjoy while I can”. What I am looking for, though, is a sustainable way of living. I need to integrate the social into my life in a balanced way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing to another how I experience him/her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my affection towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my gratitude towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my appreciation for another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing any form of positive experience I have had towards other people, because I have feared that I would then face a negative reaction from the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself through self-expression because I have associated self-expression with events from my childhood, where my self-expression was responded to with actions that I reacted negatively to.

[A memory from 1^st or 2^nd grade: there was a boy in my class I liked a lot. I never expressed this to him because I didn't really know what to do about the things I felt – I'd never received any sort of guidance concerning relationships. Once during class there was a moment where something we had in common (a toy) was unexpectedly exposed and we would have had a chance to bond over it; however, we didn't. I expressed my interest towards the commonality and was waiting for him to meet me half-way, whereas he sort or “retreated”, withdrew himself, not taking the opportunity and not interacting with me. I thought that this meant he did not like me at all, I felt ashamed and I never tried to talk with him again. I did not take into consideration that he may have withdrawn because of the situation (a boy and a girl bonding with each other during class would have required hell-class bravery and defiance of the social code), or because he, too, was clueless on what to do about his feelings. Because I entered the social world with no guidelines on what to do and how people actually work, I have built my fear of rejection based on possible misinterpretations like this.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I express my positive experience of another person, the other will respond in such a way that I might interpret as “judgement”, “rejection” or “resentment” - not realizing that always interpreting things like this is a very narrow viewpoint that does not take into consideration the entire reality of things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when a person responds to my self-expression by withdrawing themselves, it is not because I have done something “wrong” but because of whatever inner processes the entire situation has triggered within them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for the way another person responds to his/her environment, thus reacting to the other person with fear of losing control, helplessness and panic as my world isn't what I would want it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my self-blame, collapsing inwards automatically with my reaction, not stopping to breathe and realize that “HOLD ON, I am taking personally something that is not mine at all”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by believing another person's withdrawal is my fault (because I am not enough), I am NOT supporting and assisting the other to see and question the mind system that made him/her withdraw in the first place, but that I am instead supporting him/her to carry on living within and as the mind system (because he/she is not enough – through my example I show that self-diminishment is acceptable).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stand my ground when and as I have expressed myself and another has withdrawn as I have not really stood within my self-expression as I have lived as self-doubt, self-denial and self-resentment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for validation for myself from outside of myself as I have not really accepted, embraced or trusted myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the behavior of others is caused by me when in fact every individual creates their own behavior by choosing and authorizing their way of moving according to external stimuli.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself from participating in social living because I have been afraid of rejection, justifying my seclusion by judging social activities and thus settling for my solitude.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my wish to participate in social living and make myself believe that “I don't need it” as I have been afraid of taking the “risk” of exposing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that exposing myself through self-expression – by for example communicating to another how I experience him/her – is in fact NOT a risk where I put my self-worth on line but an opportunity where I don't have to lose myself (as I am always here!) but can in fact only gain and learn new things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to fear by choosing to not express myself to another when I hesitate, when I could instead breathe, return myself HERE and remind myself that the unknown is a window of opportunity leaping through which will always benefit me in the form of new experiences to be learned from.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pass by that moment of truth, the moment of fear and resistance, with excuses and justifications, thus not gifting myself with the opportunity to grow by pushing through the fear.

I commit myself to experiment an give myself opportunities to grow out of my old habits by sharing with each person in my life how I experience them, be it in the form of feedback about their qualities or as a statement of how I feel about them. [Be this my christmas present to all!]

I commit myself to explore ways and chances of expressing gratitude.

I commit myself to support and assist myself within the paralyzing moment of fear and resistance by breathing, grounding and reminding myself that change happens one small movement at a time, one word at a time, one letter at a time, one breath a time – by bringing my focus absolutely on my breath, nothing else, and moving myself relying on my breath and physical existence, as my physical existence will not shudder even though my conceptual realities tremble, crumble, scream and explode.

I commit myself to support and assist others to walk through their process by remaining stable when and as they react instead of taking their reaction personally and counter-reacting, AND in order to do this, I commit myself to further investigate why and how I take things personally.

Day 366: Reconstructing femininity - softness as a strength

09122013

I've had issues with femininity for as long as I can remember. I have gathered from photographs that as a small child I enjoyed dressing up in princess costumes mainly under the influence of my sister, but this phase passed by the time I went to school. I wore very practical clothing, I valued intelligence, I resented girly pastimes like gossiping, I didn't like the way girls interacted with each other (mainly because I was bullied – I never saw the positive side of femininity).

This point comes down to my mother and her mother (and possibly all the women down the line). My mother's mother married man who – possibly under the influence of war – became violent, aggressive and unpredictable. This is seen in my mother, who has always been meek, compliant, vulnerable and emotional. Her emotionality has been introverted, collapsing inwards and occasionally exploding outwards, as if she has been afraid of letting her emotions show. She has trouble standing up to people (including herself) and looks for fault in herself. When my parents broke up a few years ago, she had immense trouble facing my father and discussing the matter. Looking at her life, she appears to have preferred men who show a clear male dominance which she can submit to. She has little belief in her own skills and talents and needs a lot of encouraging.

Now, keep in mind that my description of my mother is the way I perceive her. She might describe the same things completely differently. The point of me describing her is to map out who I am, who I have been, where I have grown up, what burden of the past I perceive myself to carry – and what points exactly I am working on and why. All of what I described of her above are the qualities I adopted from her while growing up under her influence; what happened as I see it.

My mother was also a prime example of the positive sides of femininity – caring, compassion, support, communication – but they were overshadowed by the negative, at least for me. My sister has told me she always appreciated our mother's example and she grew up to be prominently feminine, so we have experienced her and taken influence from her differently, probably because we were born 9 years apart. I am guessing her self-suppression had accumulated and developed by the time I was born.

So, many issues have spawned from this. I have been insecure, introverted and extremely fearful. I have developed a fear of men, which has had far-stemming consequences, such as a physical inability to have sex, which I have worked on consciously for some years now. (I recently realized that this manifestation in the flesh may come from really far: for all I know my mother herself could have been conceived as a result of violent sex, knowing the character of her father.) My fear of men has developed into hatred and bitterness. I have been very shy around people. I have been constantly concerned about being accepted by others, because I had no sense of self-worth without external validation. I have been largely unable to communicate because I have had a paralyzing fear of being exposed and judged. Paralysis, all in all, is what it has been: an all-encompassing state of tension.

The reason I am writing about this (again) is because I am getting closer to, well, how to call it, a “breakthrough” of sorts. Through practical application I have been able to approach and interact with men who trigger the fear of men in me through their somehow apparent “masculinity” - a profound “maleness” in some part of their presence and/or expression. I have previously had a panicky need to protect myself from masculine expression by becoming masculine myself, be it through speech, movement, behavior or tone of discussion, or simply by distancing myself or completely escaping from the person. I am starting to reach a point where I can locate my breathing in the middle of this reaction, thus stopping my defense mechanisms, and where I can begin to explore how to “take in” masculinity – how to be the feminine counterpart – how to let go, give in, submit. To use sex as a metaphor, I once read somewhere that whereas masculinity is about pushing in and penetrating, femininity is to wrap oneself around the penetrator. It is this duality between hardness and softness that I am fascinated by, because I have never learned how to be soft. To survive in a male-dominated world I have hardened myself, metaphorically and literally.

I am glad that I have now had opportunities to investigate this point in action – although it's not surprising at all, as we summon that which we are ready for. I am dancing around the edges of my comfort zone and it is exhilarating and nerve-wrecking a the same time, lol. I think self-forgiveness on the topic would support me with the practical application, so that's what I'll do next.

Day 365: Yearly review - year 1

08122013

Today is day 365 in this blog of mine: the documentation of my journey to life that I am committed to continue for at least seven years. I started this blog on the 21^st of September 2012, and because I have skipped some days along the way, I am a couple months behind the planned schedule. It's ok, though, it won't kill me (probably) – it just means that my process will take a longer time. The more I skip days, the slower I make progress.

To commemorate a full year I decided to take a look at the first couple of posts I made into this blog. In the very first entry I talk about my tendency to go to extremes to be accepted: I was referring to a phase in my life where I adopted a “depression personality” to fit into a group of people I found cool and interesting. It is interesting to see myself having mentioned this point, because I am currently in the process of disassembling the personalities I “wear” like masks to survive social situations, survival here meaning that I would be liked/accepted and not disliked/rejected. This particular phase with the “depression persona” is one of the many in my past that I haven't properly opened up yet, and I think it might be of use to me now in my current challenges to map out how I have created and repeated these same patterns in the past.

Some other points that stand out to me from the first 7 posts:

• belief that being busy is a sign of a higher status
• “shame was the only thing I knew for a long time”
• social insecurity being a mother point
• adapting to another's mood -> losing stability

Busyness as a status marker is a belief I see in my life currently as I am NOT that busy and feel guilty about it. The shame point exists in relations to other people. Social insecurity as something inherited from my mother is a point I've been working on for a while now, and I will expand on that later. The “if you're sad, I become sad” -adaptation/assimilation point is becoming more apparent to me now that I am processing the layers of my social behavior, and I find it easier to keep myself stable regardless of others' moods and emotions.

I am now thinking of returning to older posts regularly, to see what I have missed, what is reoccurring, what I have left half-way and where I have made progress. I could do 7 days, a week at a time, pick up all the prominent points and bring them into my writing.

So, next I'm going to continue with the social points, and I am also going to share about a femininity/mother point I am currently walking through. It is fascinating, huge, difficult and has already taken me years, but I am getting somewhere and I am quite excited about it – really nervous and scared but excited, lol. Stay tuned!

I commit myself to review my old posts one week (7 days) at a time approximately once a month, write a list of the points that I find relevant or interesting and then explore those points in writing and living application.

I commit myself to write this journal for as long as it takes to reach 2555 days (7 x 365).

Days 363-364: Play is real

06-07122013

A theatre improvisation practice, 2013.

I have been thinking about playfulness. Play among children is seen as natural and what they ought to be doing, because in addition to being a venue for self-expression it works as a way for children to practice becoming participants in this reality and members in a society. But what is it when adults play? Is there even such a thing as an adult?

To define an adult is to draw a line in water. One can look at sexual maturity, but it is a well-known fact that even young children already have a sexual drive, and that even though teenagers may be able to reproduce they are not yet capable of parenting. So adulthood does not go hand in hand with sexual maturity.

Neither is adulthood about seriousness. The myth of adulthood is commonly seen in people becoming more “serious” when they reach a certain “adult” age, letting go of old hobbies because they seem “childish” (yet secretly missing them), resenting obvious toys (yet getting new gadgets like smartphones), considering oneself as “above” all children (yet envying them for their freedom) and by no means “sinking” down to a child's level and playing like children with children among children and adults alike. Adult-adult relationships become charged with adult expectations mostly to do with power and sex, which work as means of control when the fear of one's survival in a dog-eats-dog world is one's ultimate motivator.

This is why I am always happy to find adult-aged people who have not forgotten the importance of play. Because I did theatre throughout my childhood and teen years, I grew up into an adult while constantly playing. I never really let go of play or became ashamed of it, and I've noticed that this is not very common even within my age group of 20-somethings.

I came to think about playfulness after an evening where all kinds of spontaneous play took place among adults. I found myself thinking: what are the limits here? How far can play extend? Am I allowed to do whatever? Afterwards I found myself thinking that the evening “meant nothing”, “contributed to nothing”, that “nothing was real” and “it was all just play”. These thoughts were an outcome of my disappointment, because I had secretly set expectations for the evening. With these after-thoughts I downplayed all that happened to negate the meaning I had imagined for what happened within the playing – to soothe my disappointment.

I realize that the main line of play I'm looking at here was a kind of an indirect flirtation scene, where the play just goes on and on without either one really “making the move” to make visible all the desires underneath the surface. (The fears that stop me from speaking up are not my topic this time.) What play is in this scenario is a kind of a test, a warm-up: getting closer inch by inch, little by little, to see how the other one responds, within a setting where you can say “just kidding” if the other one rejects you. It's also a way to for example bring out one's sexual drive in a safe “just kidding” kind of a zone, where you can dance and touch and move to quite an extent while still being able to say “just kidding” - although, if one only looks, what is going on is obvious and doesn't have to be brushed aside. What is here is here, and it is visible if one only looks.

So what bothers me here is the “just kidding” back gate, because to me that seems like an abuse of the concept of play. Within play one can express oneself in ways that would otherwise seem “unacceptable” or “too much”, and from within self-honesty play can then be a really cool way for self-exploration and self-expansion. If for example a flirtation play happens, it can be used to begin to communicate what draws people towards each other and what the following actions could be. The “just kidding” back gate functions as long as play is considered as something that is “not real”, when in fact play IS real, many times more real than the patterns we live our daily lives according to. When play is considered “not real” it is easy for one to accept and allow others to dismiss what they saw of themselves within play, but when play is considered real, there will be no place to hide. This is where I can change myself, so that in addition to supporting myself I can also support others within play to see themselves for who they are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that play is “not real”, when in fact everything we do and are is some form of self-expression and thus very much real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore who others are within play, thus accepting and allowing them to suppress and hide dimensions of themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore who I am within play as I have been afraid of what I have seen, thus suppressing dimensions of myself and hoping that nobody saw me (or pretends that he/she didn't).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from who I am within play, not realizing that by embracing who I am within play I “expand” myself by giving attention to dimensions of myself I have so far neglected, thus becoming a “fuller” being as I unlock parts of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse the concept of play by escaping who I am within play with the words/thought “just kidding” and excusing my behavior with play.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that play is some kind of a field of its own separate from the reality, a parallel universe in a bubble, that what happens within play is “not real” - not realizing that even though who I am within play is not the personality I usually portray in my life, who I am within play is still real as it happens in this physical reality even though I imagine it to be happening within a conceptual reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the personalities I “wear” in my every day life are my “true self”, thus dismissing everything outside those personalities as “not real”.

I commit myself to explore the concept of play within and as self-honesty to support myself and others to learn and grow from what is exposed of us all within play.

I commit myself to stop pretending to not see who others are within play even if they'd directly ask for it.

Day 362: Energy from movement

02122013

silly dancing keeps you going!

I have been stuck for some weeks now after my first quarter semester at university is over and I have mainly had independent study work and very few lectures. The fact that I haven't “had to” get up and go someplace to study has had a stagnating effect on me, and my studying at home has been slow, painful and effortful. I have mostly been playing video games, focusing on my hobbies, cleaning up the apartment and socializing – all of them nice and enjoyable things, but done at the expense of my studies. Now I have a big exam and two major writing assignments due in only two weeks, and I still have plenty of work to do to complete them.

One major point pulling me down and making me feel tired and powerless has been the lack of exercise. Because I have had so much to do I have convinced myself that “I have no time to exercise”, when in fact all of my time goes to procrastination! If I'd take the time to go running for an hour and then attempt to do my work, I might actually be a lot more efficient.

I'm starting to see what a major point this is, because a couple of days ago I had a really physically active day at the theatre. We had a gig in the morning and another show in the evening, and so I was basically in motion all day, singing, speaking, dancing, expressing and connecting throughout the day. The effect of this was that I was really energetic the entire day, even when I got home – and the following day – and the day after that! Because when I had set myself in motion during that active day at the theatre it was a lot easier to keep myself moving even the following days, and keeping myself physically in motion (stretching, dancing, climbing, running, singing) has provided me with way more energy to actually do my study work as well as take care of my other pending responsibilities. When I am lying on the couch powerless and worn out it is easy to believe the excuse that “I'm too tired to move”, when in fact getting up from the couch would make me less tired.

Thus,

I commit myself to do yoga every morning, making the routine longer by adding a new move at least every week or two, with the goal of doing an hour of yoga every morning.

I commit myself to wake up early enough so that I will have time to do at least 15 minutes of yoga every morning.

I commit myself to make sure that I properly move each and every day to avoid falling back into stagnation, as I see, realize and understand that setting myself back into motion from the state of stagnation is an unnecessary “waste” of resources and can be avoided.

When and as I feel like moving myself is “too much” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that unless I am majorly injured this is not in fact true. I realize that I make the excuse “I am too tired” because moving myself out of my self-induced stagnation is uncomfortable and requires effort. I face the fact that I have in fact caused my own weariness and that the only way out of it is by my own actions. I look for the starting point of my stagnation and I forgive myself for how it was created. I then proceed to self-correction by moving myself breath by breath, motion by motion and assisting and supporting myself to set myself back into motion, no matter what kind.

Days 360-361: Fear of parents - a teacher dilemma

2911&01122013

Neither approach really works - and might not even really exist.

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.

(From Day 358: SF on "Who I should be")

I return to the commitment statements above in the light of recent events. We had a little theatre show for the friends and family of the participants of the children's theatre course I am directing, and I had to talk to the audience, direct the situation and present myself as the director (“the one who carries main responsibility”). I was nervous and burdened by this, and it was visible in me as a general restlessness, seriousness and stabs of pain in my shoulders. I spoke to the audience from within the nervousness, but thanks to what I had written before I didn't take it as a self-judgement point, but realized that if nervousness is who I am right now, why not let others see that. I am young, inexperienced and new to many things, and I have in no way claimed to be a master at what I am doing, so exposing myself within my process of growing into a “professional” serves me better than attempting to hide it when it can't really be completely hidden anyway.

So the main points here are 1) my relationship to performing / being visible / gathering attention and 2) who I believe and perceive I “should be” as the director of this course.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel nervous about performing in front of an audience because I was afraid I would not fulfill the expectations the audience (the parents – authorities/”owners” - of the course participants) and that my incompetence would be exposed.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that the parents of the child “own” the child and thus have the right to dictate what the child is exposed to and how the child is educated, not realizing that this perception is extremely shortsighted as within it I accept and allow and excuse parents to raise their children as it pleases them even if the results would be destructive to the reality as a whole, simply because I am afraid to face the reaction of the parents when I question this paradigm of parenting and education.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider children as the future creators of our common world, not realizing that even if a child is raised shut out from the world according to what the educator believes and perceives the world to be, the child will still affect all of our shared reality as what is real is undeniably HERE no matter how much one would try to protect another from it.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to play along with the parents' fear of their children becoming messed up by “apologizing” for my position as a person of influence in their children's lives. (This point needs elaboration.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if the parents actually do have expectations towards me that I do not fulfill as who I am now – which I cannot know as this subject has not been discussed with the parents – it is not my responsibility if they react to their world not being what they wanted it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not being what I believe and perceive others to want their world to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my belief/perception of “what parents want” out of the adults who direct their children is based on the assumption that parents are possessive of their children and afraid of the world “screwing them up” - because if I had children right now, this is who I would be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that with this assumption that parents are authoritative, possessive and protective I support parents to live this way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my assumption of parents being authoritative, possessive and protective is visible in my actions as I am afraid of interacting with children as who I am but instead try to be who I believe and perceive I am expected to be (a “good educator”), thus not interacting with children relaxed, breathing and present but instead interacting through tension, fear and from a distance – thus allowing my fear of failure / fear of judgement flow directly to the children and through them into the world.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “director” to mean “the one who carries responsibility above everyone else”, within this charging the role of the director with expectations and assigning a single person work and responsibilities that should not and don't have to be carried by just one person but can in fact be shared among many individuals and some even by the group under directing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if the course “fails”, I am to blame, not realizing that there are numerous factors contributing to the outcome of the course, not just myself, and that I cannot thus pass all the responsibility of the outcome on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the course will be a “failure”, with this meaning that the kids will not learn anything / “enough” and that the kids will not enjoy the course, this resulting in the parents thinking it was a waste of their money, my seniors thinking I am not suited for this work and the children perceiving me as a failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the kids will not learn “enough”, with this meaning enough to proceed into actual theatre projects and/or enough to understand what being an expressive human being is about – not realizing that especially the latter is quite the humongous goal to be achieved in just 9 months even if I'd meet them every single day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “save” these children from the influence of the world, not realizing that I cannot save anyone as everyone ultimately makes their own choices.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “save” others standing within and as the statement “don't be like that because you're ruining my world for me” - don't be a mess because life would be a lot more enjoyable (for me) if everyone got their shit together.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that the kids will learn something of value during this year as I have not realized that a human being's learning process is always running and cannot be switched off, but that what they learn might not be what I want them to learn but what I show them through my own living and application.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for not being “ready” for teaching children and thus only teaching them my patterns of nervousness, not realizing that I am also showing them (indirectly through my application) my struggle and learning process with my misgivings, thus giving an example in self-correction, self-attention, self-forgiveness, self-responsibility and self-care. *

* Realizing this just now brought me to tears, because I don't really give myself any credit for the process I have already walked, but only blame myself for all the things that are yet unresolved. I've sometimes gotten feedback from others that they would love to have me teaching their children, or that they would have loved to have a teacher like me when they were children themselves, but I have never really understood why people say that and what on earth they see in me, and I have shoved this feedback aside by thinking that “I'm a fraud, they don't know that I really just suck as a person”. But I guess that admitting to being imperfect is a commendable quality in itself, as well as actively doing something about it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the kids will not enjoy the course, not realizing that they have shown no signs of such, quite the opposite: almost everyone attends each and every meeting and participates in every rehearsal we do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to read the signs of dissatisfaction that the kids do express and to act accordingly by addressing the issue and mapping out possible solutions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make it a point of self-judgement when/as/if a child expresses dissatisfaction during the course, not realizing that the dissatisfaction a child expresses is nothing personal towards me even though I am the one who has designed the activities but rather disdain towards the activity – a point I can then assist and support the child with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as no set of rehearsals can function perfectly for a large group of individuals, it is close to impossible to reach everyone's most potent learning zone with the same structure, and that in order for me to teach a group of this size within the time limit I have got, I need to adjust, re-evaluate and re-design my rehearsal structures according to the circumstances as I go: every meeting needs to be thought again.

I commit myself to focus on relaxing myself when I am directing the children by focusing on my breath.

I commit myself to investigate what I'm trying to hide from the children when and as I interact with them, for example by looking at what I avoid.

I commit myself to further investigate my fear of the children's parents.

I commit myself to map out the responsibilities I believe and perceive myself to have as the course director and to share what I can to others and let go of those that are imaginary.

I commit myself to design the course by mapping out through listening and communication where the children are standing, structuring the course on my basic principles but keeping in mind that process is a lifelong journey that might not show immense results in just a few months.

I commit myself to reserve myself an hour for reflection after the course meetings and an hour for planning before the next meeting.