Day 404: The Desteni of Living - my declaration of principle

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http://www.deviantart.com/art/Spine-325753542

I am here to commit myself to the following statements, on which I will expand in upcoming blogs and vlogs. These statements were put together by the Desteni group, and I have gone through them independently to be able to stand fully behind them as myself.

I thus commit myself to:

1. Realising and living my utmost potential

2. Living by the principle of what is best for all – guiding me in thought, word and deed to always in all ways direct problems to the best possible outcome for all

3. Living by the principle of self honesty – to ensure I am pure in thought, word and deed: that my within and without is equal and one. Who I am within is who I am without and vice-versa

4. Self Purification through Writing, Self Forgiveness and Self Application – the action of realising I am responsible for my own thoughts, words and deeds, to forgive myself for transgressions and change myself to ensure I take responsibility for who, what and how I am and through this know that I can trust myself to always be honest with me and so others

5. Living the principle of Self Responsibility – realising only I am responsible for what I accept and allow inside of me, my relationships and my outside world and so with this responsibility: only I have the power and ability to change that which I see is compromising who I am, what I live and how this affects others

6. Realising that who I am in thought, word and deed affects not only myself – but others as well and so with Self Responsibility in thought, word and deed – I take responsibility for myself and so my relationships to be Self Aware in every moment and live in such a way that is best for me and so others as well

7. Living the Principle of Self Awareness – to be aware, to see, to recognize my own thoughts and Mind, to be self honest to the extent where I can take responsibility for when I see my thoughts / Mind is not what is best for me / others and commit to immediately take responsibility and change for myself and so for others

8. With taking responsibility for myself, becoming aware of myself – take responsibility and become aware of others in my life, to assist and support them as I am assisting and supporting myself – to give as you would like to receive and do the extra bit every day to see where I can contribute to other’s lives and so my own

9. Living the principle of self trust – as I commit myself to remain constant in my living of self honesty, self responsibility and self awareness, I stand as an unbending trust that I always in all ways know who I am no matter what I face and that in this I know, as proven in the constancy of my living that I will always honour and stand by what is best for all and so best for me

10. Making Love Visible – through me not accepting/allowing anything less than my utmost potential, I support those in my life to reach their utmost potential, to love them as I have shown love to myself by gifting to me my utmost potential, the best life/living experience and show others as I have shown myself what it means to LIVE

11. No one can save you, save yourself – the realisation that the tools and principles of Desteni is the guide, but I must walk the path myself. We are here to assist and support each other in this process from Consciousness to Awareness/LIFE and what it means to live – but the process itself, where you are alone with yourself in your own Mind: is walked alone

12. Not waiting for anything or anyone to take responsibility for me and this world – but that I realise I have created who and how I am in this moment, therefore I have the responsibility to change who and how I am and so the realisation that we as a collective created how and what this world is today and so it is the responsibility of the collective to change how and what this world is today

13. Honouring the life in each person, animal – everything from the great to the small of earth, that we expand our awareness and responsibility to creating the best possible life for everyone and everything and so ourselves

14. Relationships as Agreements: individuals coming together using agreements as a platform to one-on-one expand, grow and develop as individuals in life and living to support/assist each other unconditionally to reach their utmost potential where the agreement is a coming together of individuals understanding what it means to stand as equals and to stand as one

15. Sex as Self Expression – where sex is an united expression between individuals in honour, respect, consideration and regard of each other as equals, two physical bodies uniting in equality and oneness – a merging of two equals as one physically.

16. Realising that by the virtue of me being in this world – my responsibility does not only extend to my own Mind / my own Life, but to the minds and lives of everything and everyone of this earth and so my commitment is to extend this awareness to all of humanity to work together and live together to make this world heaven on earth for ourselves and the generations to come

17. I must in my thoughts, words and deeds – but most importantly in my living actions, become a living example for others in my world that is noticeable and visible when it comes to the potential of a person to change themselves and so change their world. So that more people can realise how we can change this world, by standing united in our self change within the principle of what is best for all to bring heaven to earth

18. I am the change I want to see in me and my world – to bring heaven to earth is to bring into being, into living the LIVING PROOF of a PRACTICAL HEAVEN that can be seen and heard in our actions and words. We are the Living Heaven that must come into creation in this living world.

19. Through purifying my thoughts, words and deeds – my inner becomes my outer, so I bring into creation me as heaven into earth, realising it is not enough to ‘see the change / be the change’ – for change to become REAL it must be a constant, consistent living of me through the words I speak and the actions I live visible and noticeable to all in every moment of breath

20. Realising that my physical body is my temple – my physical body is the living flesh through which and in which I will bring into being and create / manifest heaven on earth as me in my thoughts, words and deeds and so I honour, respect and regard – nurture and support my physical body as I would nurture and support me as equals: my body is me

21. We are the change in ourselves and this world we have been waiting for: and so I commit to dedicate myself and my life for each one as all to realise this, as nothing will change if we don’t change in all that we are, within and without

22. The realisation that for me to be able to change myself in thought, word and deed to the most effective living being that I can be and become – I first have to ‘know thyself’ and so commit myself to investigate, introspect and understand how I became who I am today, to prepare the road before me into self creation of a responsible, aware, self honest and trustworthy person for myself and so for all

23. The realisation that for me to be able to contribute to change in this world – I have to get to ‘know thyself’ as this world and so commit myself to research, investigate and introspect the inner and outer workings of this world and align the systems of today to present and give the best possible life for all on Earth

Day 394: Failing at life

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I have thought about my participation within the Desteni group and how it's been wavering quite a lot within the past 6 months or so. I make commitments to keep up a steady pace of producing content, to interact with the other group members, to partake in the maintenance of the group projects – and I always end up failing more or less. I haven't been able to keep up my pace of writing this blog at least 3-4 days a week – a drop from the 7 days a week I used to do for several months – and this blog is pretty much the last piece of participation I've been holding onto, because I have really not wanted to let it go. I have seen the practical value of writing and publishing my writings, and I feel that if I were to completely drop the blog I would completely and utterly FAIL, like giving up on myself in some way.

I just now asked myself about this, and I was surprised how clear it all suddenly was. The reason I fear taking on this commitment and investing my time on it is because I fear losing the people around me. I fear that if I were to change into the next gear (“next” here doesn't imply “better”, just a stage of movement to a direction), the people I hold dear would scatter away. But I can see that whoever I become, there will always be someone to agree with me and get into the car with me – lol, such a good metaphor – and that me holding onto people is an act of fear and not one of practicality. Of course this doesn't mean that I will lose the people around me, but I am not even giving them a chance to face that decision.

In a way I am living within and as a compromise: I see that to change my living would be impractical in terms of coping, and so I adapt to my circumstances. I adapt myself because I fear there would be no one left if I didn't.

What I mean by this in practice is that even though I am currently very busy with my studies and work, I am also spending plenty of time on recreation and procrastinating (not that they're the same thing). I realize that recreational time is important for me because through it I give myself freedom to create and express in ways that do not fit within my work schemes, and through recreation I also give myself time to rest and recover from any possible stress my body and mind have undergone. But not all of my “free time” is used in this manner. Sometimes I simply avoid doing anything of relevance because I have driven myself into mental exhaustion, and I justify this with the need to “rest” without asking why the fatigue is there in the first place and whether it could have been avoided. There's also a guilt aspect to this, where I accuse myself of having “indulged” in recreation, even though when I honestly look at my doings I know that this is not the case. I have taken care of my responsibilities – except for this commitment to participate with Desteni.

It might also be that I am simply trying to carry too much, that I am only starting to recognize my own limits. Maybe I am way too occupied at the moment to add on any more responsibility without turning it into a stressful compromise of a life. I know that my studies will be over in a couple of months, and that I will then be able to for a while focus on other tasks. I know that stressing about it will only make it worse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my commitment to participate in Desteni.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to take on responsibility as a part of the Desteni group.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to update my Journey To Life blog because I have defined upholding the blog to mean that I am “doing OK”, that I am active and willful, that I am consistently walking my process towards becoming a competent human being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have already failed at upholding the blog, if not a year ago when I broke my writing rhythm for the first time, then at least this winter when I failed to write even once a week.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I have failed my process by not writing a blog post every day, not realizing that I have in fact been walking my process in practice and in private writings, if not every day of the week, then at least more than half of the days, and that I have not failed my process but simply failed the task of reporting about it to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fail the commitment to report about my process to other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to walk my process because I perceive and believe that I will then fail at life and as a living human being, not realizing that “failure” and “success” are simply different outcomes of different choices and actions, and that I have just decided to charge some with positive meanings and others with negative meanings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when I die there will be someone/something to measure how “well” I have lived my life and that I would then feel shame / pride according to the result – not realizing that shame and pride have to do with this world and this reality and how things work in this dimension of existence, assuming that life after death will be as it is here when and as the human mind dictates how life is experienced, not realizing that life after death could be ANYTHING unimaginable – and that to fear possible feelings of shame by judgement – which can be breathed through and released, as they can be in this reality - is thus to focus on the irrelevant: if I cannot know something for sure and prepare myself for it, why stress about it at all?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that there is an authority who decides whether my life has been “good” or “bad”, not realizing that it is ultimately up to me to decide and carry responsibility for my decision.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to secretly wish for there to be an authority to decide upon the “preferable” and the “unpreferable” so that I wouldn't have to look for the truth myself and make a stand as myself, not as a vessel of God/universe/whichever authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to participate in Desteni so that I could feel better about myself, as if I was then “saved” from The Judgement, and not from the starting point of wanting to work for this world as a whole.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in Desteni from the starting point of self-interest and fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to really contribute to the Desteni group and not only slow it down, my starting point needs to be selfless, as it needs to be in whatever I do with other people for all of the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that selflessness doesn't mean that I'm excluded from everything else, but that the concept of “self” disappears in favor of All.

I commit myself to map out and revise the ways I use my time.

I commit myself to focus on my main responsibilities – studying (to establish a position for myself in the world system / to educate myself), working (to sustain my living / to apply what I've studied into practice), and civil society participation (to rehearse working with people / to create networks and relations) – and to thus give them my full focus and energy, only taking into consideration other possible responsibilities when/as/if I have time left over from my current main responsibilities.

I commit myself to regularly revise my responsibilities to see if some need to be let go and replaced with others.

I commit myself to take into consideration the fact that my capacity is in fact limited even though it can be expanded to some extent, and that I cannot take on too much responsibility without the quality of my input decreasing.

I commit myself to build my life to be enjoyable, constructive and fulfilling in a way where I give to Life more than I take from it.

Day 386: Back on track

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It has been interesting to see what happens when I grow out of the habit of daily writing. Even though I have been going through many points in action, thought and conversation, and also occasionally in spoken self-forgiveness, I am unable to provide a comprehensive documentation of what I have in fact been going through. That is the benefit of writing: there is always evidence to return to, to remind myself with. The past few weeks have slipped by and I don't have a detailed recollection of any but the key events.

This is why, as my schedules are no longer / at the moment as tight as they were, I am returning to daily writing – or more precisely, to my more realistic goal of writing on at least 4 days of the week. I have found that having documentation of my motions is beneficial to my process and development both within the moment and also in the future, as I am able to reflect on the past relying on something more solid than my memories only.

I again have no idea what to write about, so let's see what I find here.

An interesting notion I am making right now as I write is that the way in which I write has somehow changed. I have been both reading and writing massive amounts of mainly scientific material lately due to my studies, and I guess the “firmness” of scientific text is seeping into the way I not only write but also think. This may prove to be a good thing, as it may help me organize my thoughts, emotions and experiences. I am not entirely sure what I mean by “firmness” here, but I think it has something to do with both fluency and clarity. In any case, it's cool to see that there is a difference.

I have been going through many interesting things lately, which I will try to make some kind of a list out of.

• building a partnership / relationship / agreement
  • uncertainty / self-esteem
  • fear of speaking up
  • impatience with another – how to disagree?
• building self-discipline to be able to study/work
  • doing a little at a time – the push to take the steps to study instead of caving in to entertainment
• physical body in constant pain – lack of exercise and effort
  • how to make time for exercise?
  • How to make exercise enjoyable?
  • How to push through the discomfort of moving myself?
• developing participatory leadership with children
  • treating children equally
  • stopping blame and guilting
• loneliness / solitude / socializing
  • “please recognize me” - fear of turning invisible – seeking for a “connection”
  • effort to socialize: why should others come for me?
  • Learning to enjoy men as people, not as potential partners

Quite the list! Lol, and that's not even all of it. Alright, the plan is I start going through these points little at a time, depending on which points are more prominent. It is really nice to be here again, in my writing spot, devoting this section of time for myself only – not in the fuzzy-warm-feeling kind of nice, but, I dunno, a tranquil sort of “nice”, lol. I am giving myself the attention and the care I need by sitting down to discuss with myself through writing. Thanks, me, I appreciate it!

An update

I have been very busy with my university studies recently, so I have been unable to keep up with my consistent writing rhythm. This doesn't mean that my process has been stagnant, but that it has been taking place in my lived life, in which I have received plenty of support from my partner. I will return to writing as soon as my schedules allow. Just to let you know I'm not dead!

Day 373: Claiming personal space - distracted by the social sphere

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For some time now I have had my partner living with me. He lives on the other side of the globe and is now visiting me for some weeks / a couple of months. He has been living in my apartment for about 3 weeks, which has been a major challenge for me because I have lived alone for the past 4-5 years.

One challenge I have faced is finding, arranging and claiming personal space when it's needed. Because my apartment only really has one room with no doors to separate private spaces, it takes some effort to de-attach myself from the presence of the other, as I first need to identify the need for personal space, then decide to arrange it, then communicate it, and then make sure that I utilize that space effectively.

This is one of the reasons I have had trouble writing lately. I find it difficult to focus on writing in the presence of another or rather find some social activities more relevant. My partner agrees that writing is important and he is willing to give me all the space I need for doing it, but I have still found it difficult. I much rather just escape the discomfort of arranging myself a moment for writing into social activities as they are so easy and comfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape the discomfort I find in writing into social activities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make writing uncomfortable for myself as I have created a threshold from the excuse “I don't know what to write about”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that “I don't now what to write about”, not realizing that it is an excuse to not write, and that I am in fact able to figure out what to write a blog post about once I sit down, bring myself to breath and start mapping out my recent experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear / anticipate the moment when I do not have a clear view on what today's blog post will be about, not realizing that the view will clarify eventually as I simply break my experience down and give myself enough time to piece it together.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be distracted by the social possibilities living with another person brings into my life, thus forgetting about and ignoring my responsibilities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify being distracted by the social possibilities with the fact that my partner will only be here for a few weeks, not realizing that even though this is true and I should utilize my time with him as effectively as possible, by interacting with him from the starting point of escapism I build the relationship into a place of escapism / illusion instead of building it into a platform of actual support, which will have long-lasting consequences and might affect the relationship further in the future.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the choices I make when living with my partner affect the way the relationship is constructed, and that if I give myself leeway by for example escaping my responsibilities or disregarding communication, it will have an effect on what the relationship becomes and what kind of issues/conflict/disturbance we will eventually come across.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by claiming myself personal space to carry out my responsibilities and tasks I build the relationship to be founded on self-responsibility, self-reliance, commitment, direct communication, self-honesty and mutual support and assistance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by claiming myself personal space I do not only support myself but I also support the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear claiming personal space because it requires me to ask for practical things (silence, comfortable seat, good lighting, etc.) for myself so that the other will not be able to use them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear asking for these practicalities as I have feared that I might be asking “too much” from the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I ask “too much” of the other, he will think less of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my partner thinking less of me because I perceive and believe that with him there's “more to lose” than with others as the “stakes are higher”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give special value to my partner's opinion of me as I have believed and perceived that a positive opinion keeps the relationship together whereas a negative opinion will make him lose interest / motivation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a person's opinion of another – how one experiences the other momentarily and in long-term / who one believes and perceives the other to be – is the fundamental reason for why relationships are created and held onto, not realizing that to build a partnership on feelings, images and concepts alone is unreliable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that alongside feelings and concepts relationships can also be built on principles, common goals and rational reasoning, which will provide a more solid foundation for a relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust the principles our relationship is founded upon and (out of habit) be constantly afraid of “losing my standing” in the eyes of my partner, as this is what has usually been the reason for my relationships ending.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold the practice of building relationships on unreliable grounds by choosing my partners according to momentary experiences and ending the relationships when my partners have no longer triggered the same experience in me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my current relationship will end up the same way my previous relationships have ended up, not realizing that I have the tools to prevent such an outcome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by trying to guess how this relationship “ends up” I am thinking in stories, simplifying lived life into images and living according to this guesswork, not realizing that future is created HERE and cannot be fully foreseen.

I digress!

I commit myself to arrange myself the time and space to write every day, taking into consideration the circumstances I do this in.

I commit myself to practice trust and self-trust by addressing topics that feel difficult with my partner.

I commit myself, when and as I need it, to ask for support from my partner e.g. in writing.

Day 365: Yearly review - year 1

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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).

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 251: Rebooting

08062013

I have just slept off a few night's worth of not enough rest, and I feel oddly powerless. I am trembling, there is no strength left in my muscles, I am sleepy. There are many factors contributing to this and I will now go through them to see what and how much can be done about this experience.

I have been going on with less than 6 hours of sleep for three consecutive days. Last night I slept 10 hours and woke up today at 1 pm. I felt like I could have slept even more but wanted to get up so that my rhythm wouldn't be completely messed up – and I knew that sleeping more hours in a row would not really help me because the REM stage was long gone already. So after waking up I've eaten, stretched and walked around a bit to wake myself up, and I am now in a really weak state with not much will to move at all. This may be a sign that I simply need more physical rest after a few days of running around sightseeing – or it may be a sign of a point I am reluctant to face and try to escape into limpness.

The past few days have been really fun. I have learned a lot about the culture I am living in – and also those of the other travelers - and enjoyed the company of different kinds of awesome people. I have learned new things about myself by exposing myself to various kinds of experiences and I have unveiled some new points which I have so far been unable to write about. I have been trying to write, but basically I have been unable to focus and haven't really known what to write about so I have decided not to until I have some grasp of what I am actually going through at the moment. Last night's sleep seems to have “rebooted” me in such a way that I feel like I have “returned to myself”, to a state of stability of some sort, and I'm starting to get a hold of myself again. The physical weakness may be a sign of this recovery.

I have been exploring further the point of living within, as and through relationships of dependency. I have gained new perspective on the network of relationships I “left behind” and I now have a clearer view on how I have been dependent on the people back home. I have also realized how easy it is to create new relationships of dependency with others when none of the people involved question this. The fatigue I am now experiencing might also be a sign of the re-stabilizing that happens when the people I have been dependent on to create my experience for me have left and I have “had to” become fully self-directed again. The weariness might also be from upholding a character/appearance while being social with other people.

I've become more aware of the creation point of a personality/character, and I have for example been looking at my “drunk personalities”. It seems that when I am drunk I become very gleeful, playful and more inclined to talk to others – all qualities which I would like to express when sober but which I suppress for one reason or another and only release when I am in the social situation of drinking. So this character I could write about in more detail.

Alright, so points I will write about:

• drunk personalities
• mapping out relationships of dependency
• the creation of co-dependency
• spirituality, bitterness and spite
• hesitation

I'll expand on these in writings to come.

Day 240: Trouble finding stability

23052013

A couple of nights ago I woke up to an experience I described as a swarm of thoughts attacking me, like a swarm of fish just slammed against me. During this experience, in a half-asleep state, I realized that I am like a fisherman who picks up a fish from a swarm when I choose to believe a thought and ignore another – when I participate in a thought by believing it I make an active choice to “pick it up” when I could instead allow the swarm to swim past me without grabbing any of it.

I have lately been struggling with immense backchat concerning an issue that is here, and last night it got to such an extreme that I walked around town to find a night club where I could dance off my frustration – I didn't find one (each one had crappy music) but the worst frustration wore off simply with the act of vigorous walking. I wrote about it and I read some writings by Bernard which helped me stabilize. I'm starting to see more and more what is actually causing the “swarm of fish” (thoughts) to appear in the first place, and so far it has been an unconscious fear that is triggered by something in my environment (people, events, places, etc). The fear that goes unaddressed is what “drags” me deeper into a psychosis-like state of thoughts bouncing around.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the patterns of fear that have been triggered in me and thus allow myself to believe the thoughts that occur as a result.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accumulate the thoughts of fear, doubt, blame, suppression, grief and loneliness to a point where I became so frustrated that I was unable to communicate my experience to anyone and needed to release the energy physically.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that none of these thoughts is real in any way whatsoever because they are based on assumptions and guesses and not on what is actually here in the physical reality.

I commit myself to stop slacking off with my practical application by facing my fears in practice instead of running away from them within and as the realization that nothing that goes on in my mind is actually real and bears no value in terms of actually moving myself HERE in breath in the physical.

I commit myself to continue writing about the fears and points that I have now been facing, be it private or public.

I've realized that I have been slacking off on my process while I've been traveling and that it's now getting back at me with slackier practical application. It is very difficult for me to focus on writing now that I do not have a stable environment to do that in, so I write more rarely and more vaguely. I realize that I now face a challenge where the stability needed for writing has to be found within me alone, and this is a big challenge in itself – so why not fully focus on this, then? Perhaps having a clear guideline would help.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist writing because it feels now even more effortful than it did back home, not realizing that as my environment is in constant change I need to give myself extra support to have a proper writing environment every day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not publish the writings I have written daily because I have judged them to not be good enough, not realizing that if I gifted myself with the time and support I needed for writing I could finish the writings into a publishable shape.

I commit myself to dedicate myself writing time (pen and paper / computer) within the waking hours of each and every day no matter where I am, and I commit myself to ensure myself proper privacy, silence and physical support (food/drink/sitting surface/lighting) within and as the realization that this “writing space” can be created anywhere with little effort.

When and as I resist doing my daily writing, I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that if I do not write my practical application will become more slacky and that this will lead to all kinds of unpleasant and unnecessary emotional experiences. I check my surroundings to see if there is something I could do to improve my writing environment. I check myself for any excuses/justifications to not write and I clear these out with self-honesty.

I commit myself to write even if it's something I cannot publish in my blog within and as the realization that even though it is important to share so that others would find support I am writing mainly for myself.

Days 208-209: Clarifying my starting point for writing

18-19042013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 207: Making process heavier

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that walking the process of releasing myself from the mind is a burden, not realizing that as I use/think/experience the word “burden” I connect my experience of walking the process to undesirability, which creates resistance towards the experience, and that I hereby make it more difficult for myself to walk the process and actually bring into flesh the “burden” that originally only existed within my mind as a perception.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the commitment to write each day is “limiting”, “restraining”, “suffocating” and “binding”, this resistance indicating that my resolution to write is not fully clear.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the clear structure and rhythm of this commitment to write each day is not to limit me but to support me to establish self-discipline.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the commitment to write every day for at least 7 years because I have perceived it to be a “loss of freedom”, yet never asking myself “freedom to do what”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “freedom” I desire within this fear of “loss of freedom” is freedom from responsibility, freedom from understanding, freedom from action – the freedom to accept and allow the world to burn around me as I close my eyes and drown into the fascination of my own mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist my commitment to write every day for at least 7 years as I have not fully embraced my reasons for doing it.

[Here I did private self-forgiveness for my reasons to begin writing my Journey to Life -blog and to accept the challenge of daily writing. My main reason for it was the fact that I had run out of reasons not to: I wanted to write, I wanted structure, I wanted support, I wanted to challenge myself, I needed to start making some sense of the stuff welling up within me. I was not completely clear on my starting point, though, and now I'm sorting it out.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards writing because I have done it partly from the starting point of “trying to be enough”, seeking for acceptance/approval/validation from others by publishing my writings, and thus setting myself a goal/ideal when and as I write [goal = write a good text / good text = one that receives positive feedback from others], thus not writing from the starting point of writing for myself but instead writing through fear which becomes a burden as it accumulates every time I write from this starting point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my writing is most effective and constructive when I write to understand myself and not to be understood by others – in the sense that others would need to give me the experience of “being understood” when I lack this self-acceptance and certainty in myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have written something that seems to “fall in place” (when and as I fully realize and understand what I have written), to automatically think “now others will respect me (for this realization)” as I revel in the elevation I give to myself as a “reward” for “writing well” - thus compensating for my insecurity by assigning myself a status that is “respectable”/”approvable” in the eyes of others instead of just accepting the result of my writing, approving myself and moving on to the next point in my process.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my need to receive validation from others, as manifested in my starting point for publishing my writings, is inherently linked to my insecurity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in my process through disdain and weariness. [negative polarity]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in my process through excitement and joy. [positive polarity]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in the process through polarities, seeing it as either “bad” or “good” when in fact it's neither – it is simply what is necessary when considering the reality that we share as All Life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the process to be “good”, “the best”, “my saviour”, “awesome” and “the one and only truth”, not seeing it for what it is: a method among methods, and the one that appears to work the best for me (and many others) right now.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the process to be “troublesome”, “tiresome”, “hard”, “difficult”, “too much”, “not for me”, “demanding” and “ruthless” as I have seen myself as “less” than the process, not realizing that I AM the process and thus cannot be “less” or “more” but am in fact one with it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the process by glorifying it / demonizing it as I have not seen, realized and understood that I am one with and equal to the process and that therefore it cannot be of a different value than myself or anyone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is us, all of us, everyone and everything that lives that is walking their own process of development* more or less aware of it and thus living as the process – and that there is thus no one separate from the process as we are all living the process.

[*Note: the word “development” holds neither a positive nor a negative value to me, so I'm not saying that each being's process would automatically be going “upwards” or towards the best possible outcome – it needs to be directed there – and so it is foolish to think that “eventually all will end well” as if in time everyone will be “enlightened” with no effort at all.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to elevate those who are aware of their process and direct it according to the same principles that I do, not realizing that with this I create more separation and do not take into consideration that it is rare for people to have such living conditions (basic living requirements, stable family environment, education, freedom to move within society) where becoming aware of one's process would be possible, and that I cannot thus deem those who are unaware as “less than” “us” as I cannot know where they stand in their process and why.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have noticed a point activating, to react with the fear of the point “slipping away” where I would lose my chance to face and direct the point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and “solve” a point with the mind as intellect, logic and reasoning, not realizing that this is by no means the same as facing and directing the point, as when I try to “figure out” the point with the mind I separate myself from it and refuse to stand as one with and equal to the point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear not solving a point when it activates as I fear “screwing up” the opportunity that is here because I perceive and believe that if the point “slips away” I might never be able to face it again and then I would live as an incomplete being and would judge myself to be a “failure”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself to be a “failure” when I have not succeeded in facing and directing a point that has activated because I fear the work load ahead of me as I fear one lifetime will not be enough to sort all of my shit out.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal of how one “succeeds” in facing a point and to thus react every time this idea is not reached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe the process ahead of me to be “bigger” than me, here mistaking the duration of something to indicate it is “more” than me (process lasts a lifetime – my subjective experience lasts for one breath at a time), not realizing that the vastness of the process is the vastness of who I am – that I am the process ahead of me – I am the process I walk.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my process as I have not seen, realized or understood that the material I am working with is all that I have accepted and allowed – not what someone else has accepted and allowed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will not sort myself out because of the vastness of all my bullshit, not realizing that I will get as far as I get within this lifetime and that no amount of stressing, fearing or planning will assist me in getting any further; only moment-to-moment forgiveness and application will accelerate my movement within my process.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to deal with the points that activate within and as breath and as physical expression and instead hold onto my mind and try to push myself to “sort out” the points with intellect, logic and reasoning.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need the mind to face and direct the points that activate and to not dare to let the mind go at the face of a challenge as I have been afraid of failure and with this tried to ensure my success.

When and as I am faced with an activating point (pain/energy/sensations/patterns in the physical and/or activity in the mind as thoughts/images/scenes/memories/associations/habits), I stop, I breathe and I realize that an essential thing when facing a point is to return myself to and stabilize myself in breath and to listen to my physical body. I breathe with a slow and steady rhythm and feel the motion of my breath in my body. I move my focus onto my body and take note of whatever sensations I find. I then take note of whatever happened within my mind when and as the point activated. As I keep myself stable in breath I look at what I saw in the physical and in the mind. I will not backchat about what I found in the mind as then I would be participating in it and validating its existence. I will not accept and allow myself to create disdain/rejection towards the physical sensations as then I would be separating myself from my physical existence by not wanting to be one with and equal to it. I will instead keep on breathing and I will embrace and breathe through the physical sensations. I will realize that my mind is not who I am even though it indicates who I am at the moment, and that my thoughts/backchat/etc. should not be taken personally. I then move myself according to my experience within the realization that the process doesn't always move in leaps but small inches at a time and that if I don't appear to be moving at lightning-speed I might still be making progress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that I “have to” walk my process as I have seen realized and understood this to be what is necessary and mistaken this necessity for a demand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assign the words “necessity”, “necessary” and “need” a negative charge where I connect these words to “burden”, “have to”, “no choice” and “no freedom”, thus making it harder for me to live according to what is necessary as I perceive it to be limiting and eroding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist adapting to that which is necessary as I have wanted to stick to the old and comfortable instead of living out change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that within necessities I have “no freedom of choice”, not realizing that I may always choose otherwise – the fact that I don't, however, indicates that I have already made my decision and now only refuse to fully stand within the decision.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my decisions instead of looking directly at the reasons why I do not fully stand within my decisions – with writing for example, doubting the process and tool of writing instead of looking at why I am not getting the most out of writing and why I resist it.

I commit myself to carry on writing my 7 year Journey to Life blog daily if by any practical means possible.

I commit myself to write about what I experience in my daily living and how I apply myself, and to thus write from the starting point of sharing, documenting and structuring my process.

I commit myself to stop myself whenever I stress about writing and to remind myself I will only hinder my writing by stressing about it, and I commit myself to breathe and release myself from the stress before I continue writing, even if I am writing about the experience of stress itself.

I commit myself to reserve at least 1 hour of my day to writing.

I commit myself to trust myself to know what to write about.

I commit myself to embrace the process of writing in all its hardship as I see, realize and understand that the process of writing is all about self-support and building a reliable foundation for myself, which is the greatest “peace of mind” that I have found so far.

I commit myself to rely on myself to work my way through this process no matter how long it takes, as I have already shown myself in a relatively short period of time that I am in fact able to change.

I commit myself to not despair when a point remains unclear despite my efforts to “sort it out” within the realization that eventually all that I have missed will come back to me, be it before death or after.

Day 207: Making process heavier

17042013

When I woke up this morning I noticed an experience / a thought within me that said: “I don't want to wake up – that means I'd have to process things again”, with the perception that “being in process is rough”. I haven't noticed thoughts/experiences like this before and I noted this down, and it appears to now link to something else that happened today.

In the morning at work I had a strange moment of miscommunication with a customer, an old man. He was trying to get his order through and I was trying to figure out if I understood him correctly, and he reacted to my words by saying “I'm not dumb, I can read”, yet he never answered my question. So this went on for a while and we got the situation cleared out, he got what he wanted and considering the practical reality things were cool. However, I had within the interaction reacted with the fear of “losing a customer” as he seemed insulted and I for a second thought that he might just storm out the door. This specific fear is linked to many points which I realized had been activated, and as I noticed a sharp pain in my shoulders right after the interaction and realized that it was an indication of what had happened within me right then and there, I thought to myself: “Alright, this is my chance to solve this point!” And started looking into it – but for some reason I went completely wrong.

I did find some of the actual underlying points, but whenever it came to forgiving them, I noticed myself crashing and the pain worsening. It was like “hey, maybe this is what I should do” and I tried it with the expectation/hope/desire that it would magically work, which it of course didn't. My starting point for solving the issue was to end the physical pain and discomfort and to “get things overwith”, and not to actually face what was going on. It was as if I was looking for an easy way out.

And so I realized that I had been making the situation more difficult for myself by trying to process things by force, you know, gritting my teeth and growling and pushing, lol. I made it more complex by trying to solve things through mind and intellect instead of stopping to rely on my physical to tell me what's up. I noticed the pain in my shoulder and immediately grabbed it, thinking “a-ha, this must be it” and analyzing it through and through without stopping to allow the energy to dissolve and the tension to loosen up.

I realize how this is a direct continuation to the heavy experience I had when waking up. I sometimes feel burdened by this process I am walking because I make it stressful by setting goals and ideals for myself, not realizing that I will do all that I can but that I cannot do any more than I am able to – and that I am not able to foresee any of this as my future is a result of how I live my current moment. Therefore I cannot really set any goals because I cannot know who I will be in a day, week, month or a year; the pace of one's process cannot be predicted or predetermined.

So why am I making it heavier than usual right now? Is there a goal/ideal I have set? Well, as my worst hurries have just ended and I have had a couple of days to recover I have thought that “now I have time to catch up on my process”, this meaning that I have time to continue with DIP Lite and invest more in daily writing. So perhaps I associate “catching up” with “more results” or something? I don't know. But it may also be the fact that now that I've had a couple of days of rest (somewhat, I still work and study and stuff) I feel like the world ought to “give me a break” from everything so that I could “just be”. But right now I am “just being”, I have no hurries, sitting down and writing, doing just the things I enjoy doing such as studying, cooking, exercising. So what's missing? Is it a craving for no responsibilities at all – so that I would have to do nothing at all – it's the “have to” that is off here. I feel like I “have to” walk my process. It feels like an inescapable burden. In this I forget the release, stability, health, freedom and joy there is in walking the process as I get a hold of actual living and shed the shackles of my mind.

Maybe it would be in order to remind myself the process I have walked thus far and how it has affected the quality of my life. I only have to rewind a year or two to find myself in a mental state that was easily disturbed and flung into anxiety, depression and panic. I was utterly dependent on other people and unable to tolerate my own company without distraction (i.e. entertainment). I had fixations on other people as I had no inner stability and reached for stability points in my environment. I was indecisive, fearful and unsure about the direction of my life. I was highly spiritual and believed in energy as a special kind of a magic force that some special individuals could practice and refine, and I saw my position within this structure justified. I was dependent on my personalities to survive interaction with others and I had never faced my true level of insecurity. I was blaming others for my adversities – childhood bullying was the bullies' fault, sexual abuse was the abuser's fault, bad relations to a family member where the other's fault, my lack of direction was the society's fault. I was unable to carry responsibility for myself.

I look at what I wrote here and it's all true with no exaggeration, even though it feels like it from where I'm standing now. I am not saying I have transcended all of this completely, but I am most definitely on my way there. I am glad to be here now, and I wouldn't be here if I hadn't faced myself with self-honesty (boy, was it ugly at first) and supported this with writing. I am relieved – re-lived, reborn.

So to think of walking my process as “heavy” is not exactly incorrect, as it is the most difficult thing I have ever done and certainly not a cake walk, but it is not “heavy” in the sense that it would be a burden, like something undesirable – I know what the result will be and I am most willing to do what it takes to get there. It is my responsibility to do what I can with the understanding that I've got, as it is a privilege to have such living conditions where it is possible to get to this point. And so it is not a responsibility that I would carry with disdain or bitterness – it is one that I am glad to live by, as I know it will result in a world that is somewhat better to all, firstly by stabilizing my beingness into such that is bearable to live within.

I'll continue with self-forgiveness and guidelines for practical application.

Day 193: Gifting myself with attention

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/embracing-light--self-portrait-jaeda-dewalt.html

02042013

I am at the moment at the culmination point of all the projects I have been very busy with for the entire spring. I am running out of time and every deadline seems to be at the same time (not all of them actually are and this is a matter of laying out schedules based on facts).

I have been facing new points while also working on an ever-increasing and tightening work load and schedule, and I have had an intense time and managed to keep myself together just barely. I have had 4 days off from my paid job, but I have not been on a holiday but working 12-hour days at the theatre – and so it is going to be until next week or so, with everything else in my life demanding my attention at the same time. And so when I landed back on my day job with a myriad of points-in-process running through my head and with an ever-growing fear that I am just not going to make it, that I am going to kill myself - that I am going to die with all of this because if I increase the amount of time I work it will be away from sleeping and writing and that would be self-compromise and a suicide, and I refuse to do that – I ended up at a point where there was no thought, no conscious trigger, but a movement from within me as my physical existence or whoever I am beneath all this that seemed to say: Enough. And I took two deep breaths and it was like a dam breaking, I cried and gasped for air, and I felt like I was facing myself for the first time in days, as if I took myself on the palm of my hand and finally carried my shaken self as if I had been shouting for my own attention for all of these days and finally stopped neglecting myself.

This is interesting because I have seen how this need of my own attention has been reflected into a wish that someone would show me attention – someone else – anyone – which has then been morphed into blame (“why does he never ask me how I'm doing”, “why do I give everything and get nothing in return”, “why does no one care about me”) - when it is obvious that I am just projecting my needs on others and casting the responsibility of my well-being on other people when it is in fact MY responsibility to take care of myself, to care about myself, to care for myself.

And so today I realized the importance of “having some me-time”, lol. And it is not just about dedicating some time off my day to myself solely (in which writing is a great tool), but to teach myself to have that me-time in every single breath. It is especially important at a time like this where I'd have the least time to spare for anything but work, because this me-time is what keeps me from falling apart under all this stress. I am moving at light-speed and if my rocket ship ain't well maintained all the time the screws are gonna come flying off and the ship will crumble! (lol, I'm totally giggling at this analogy because it RULES)

I commit myself to teach myself through consistency to gift myself each and every breath that I take – in practice meaning that I teach myself to be aware of each and every time I inhale and exhale and to direct each and every breath within and as myself, and that when and as I fall out of breath I forgive myself and try again, because I see, realize and understand that this can only ever be done through consistent practice and self-support – and I commit myself to practice for as long as it takes to build this into an automation, so that my self-aware and self-directed breathing is as automatic as my thoughts are to me now.

I commit myself to realize when and as I breathe that each and every breath I take is in fact my gift to myself as Life.

I commit myself to keep on dedicating a segment of my day, at least 1 hour but preferably more, to writing this Journey to Life blog where I gift myself my own attention and support to whatever I am processing at that moment.

I commit myself to realize that each and every breath that I do not live within and as self-awareness is in fact self-compromise because my attention and focus is then projected elsewhere, which is when I lose myself and suffocate myself.