Day 249: Fear of exposing myself through singing

02-032013

Singing at my father's wedding in 2011.

Today I faced an interesting fear. I was spending my day on a nice, calm residential area and had no plans but to sit around reading and writing and maybe connecting with people if I got the chance to. I ended up sitting next to the local subway station and while I was watching the people flow by I realized that this would be a perfect spot and a perfect moment for street performing, which I had planned on doing during my trip if I got the chance and if I started to run out of money. I had thought about doing this a couple times before, but I had always had an excuse not to, but this time I had all the practical elements in order and so there were no excuses left not to do it.

Once the idea got to me I noticed that at first I was already about to do it – like, “alright, this would be suitable now, I'll do it”, just seeing the practicality and acting upon it - but then I was stopped by a paralyzing fear. It was not a verbalized thought that stopped me, but a feeling, something that made my heart beat really fast and hard. I am not sure what the initial starting point was for my nervousness to arise.

So I little by little physically moved myself into a position where all I had left to do was to lay down my money cup and start singing. This is where I got stuck for about a half an hour. I asked myself: What do I fear? Who am I right now? And I moved through many layers of self-awareness, where I admitted to my fears and demons and saw myself for who I was within my fears and my motivation. Eventually when I had already gone through all this I noticed that I was simply looping, repeating the same thought patterns over and over again, and I realized that all that was left to do was to actually move myself. I told myself: “I am not leaving here until I do this.” I tried to move my hand to lay down the cup but I stopped myself mid-way. I tried again with the exact same result. I then decided to move myself completely, got up from the bench, moved around a bit standing up, up and down, laid my cup down and just pushed through the resistance and started to sing – and from that moment on it was easy, things went smoothly, I enjoyed myself, others seemed to enjoy me and I/we had a lot of fun. So I had to actually change my position entirely: the sitting position I had been stuck in for a half an hour was a manifestation of my fear and hesitation and it was necessary to move myself out of it to shake off the fear.

A fucking insanely difficult threshold to cross, especially concerning by background in performance arts, but I did it! And I can actually see that from now on doing the same thing will be easier because I have already proven to myself that my fears were invalid.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my singing is not as good that I believe it to be and that I will embarrass myself by singing in public without a band to back me up.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give authority to the experience of embarrassment by losing my stance and separating myself from myself with self-judgement when and as I have perceived and believed others to judge me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that embarrassment is an experience I create in my mind based on guesswork, interpretations and a distorted self-image and that this experience is in no way whatsoever based on reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my voice and singing alone is not enough to count as a performance, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use this belief as an excuse not to sing on the streets alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I wish to have a band or other singers to back me up because when I am alone I will not be just a performance but I will be exposing myself in public.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself to others in public through my singing as self-expression as I have not faced and embraced myself within and as that act of self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my self-expression by not standing within and as myself when and as I sing in the presence of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that there is a standard I need to reach to be accepted by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that once I accept and embrace myself I will show myself to others in self-honesty, which enables others to accept me as well as I grant them access to my real self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear scenarios where others would show their disapproval of my self-expression, because I have learned to fear this in my childhood where my peers bullied me because of how I expressed myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my fear of the judgement of others is based on a childhood misconception that I am defined by the opinions of others, and that this fear is thus not valid as I now see, realize and understand that the opinions of others are manifestations of who they are, not of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my ability to sing as I have perceived and believed this ability to be defined by technical skills alone, not realizing that the ability to sing is also composed of self-expression which has nothing to do with physical technique – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself credit for both the technical and expressive ability that I do in fact have when and as I sing without fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my lack of education in singing techniques as an excuse not to perform and as evidence for my perception that my skills are less than they actually are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit and suppress my self-expression with a distorted self-image and with excuses that put the blame for this on others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to sing from the starting point of impressing others with my skills, not singing to express myself but to present an image of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my fear of singing alone in public is not about facing others but about facing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not enjoy myself when and as I sing by considering what others might want to hear me sing, not realizing that I cannot possibly know this and that the “best guess” is just to sing what I enjoy singing as that is the most self-honest approach.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear singing because I am then fully exposed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making mistakes when I sing because I want to maintain a self-image of flawlessness, reacting to all mistakes by “pulling back” from my self-expression and from then on “playing it safe” - not realizing that everyone makes mistakes and that they can be utilized for learning, growth and expansion of skill.

I commit myself to embrace moments of making mistakes when singing as moments of humanity – in other words, I commit myself to embrace my flaws as moments of learning by checking what led me to that particular mistake and what could be done differently.

I commit myself to utilize upcoming opportunities to perform in public and to embrace those moments as self-expression and communication.

When and as I face the fear of singing in public – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that I can rely on myself to be here for me and with me. I realize that my fear of others is based on the misconception that other people are not like me and cannot/will not sympathize with me. I realize that I am here to express myself to and communicate with others through the tool of singing. I breathe and stabilize myself and align myself with all of my physical existence. I then proceed to push through the threshold of fear by letting my voice flow from me in full strength within and as the realization that the threshold is actually imaginary as I will remain HERE just the same before and after crossing it, and that the threshold will get smaller each and every time I cross it.

I commit myself to sing in the presence of others from the starting point of self-expression as I see, realize and understand that this is the only way my singing will be self-honest communication with others and not an ego show.

I commit myself to investigate the experience of embarrassment by stopping and breathing when and as I experience embarrassment and/or fear the experience of embarrassment, thus becoming aware of it and not accepting and allowing these moments to slip by.

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.

Day 236: A realization on breathing while in pain

18052013

Having a hangover while also going through menstruation pain is kind of an extreme torture experience. Deciding to go out into fresh air and walk a little actually helped, while sitting down and moaning in a stuffy hostel full of hungover people didn't. Also, the painkillers probably kicked in. It was interesting to face this experience within and as the realization that it will pass, not giving my thoughts control over me to make the experience seem worse than it is. I returned to breath and it helped a little, it cleared my head and helped me locate the pain / poisoning in my body. But breath wasn't enough in itself: being within breath was simply seeing what was necessary to be done, which I then had to get up and do. This kinda puts it into perspective, the function of breath: it itself will not do the work for me, but it is the knowledge, clarity and presence which is required before action.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in thoughts that magnify the experience of physical discomfort/pain/sickness I am in, such as:

• “this pain is too much”
• “I will not survive this”
• “oh god holy fuck whoa this pain is intense”
• “the medicine is not working”
• “the medicine is not going to work anyway”
• “the medicine is not working fast enough”
• “come on medicine, work already!”
• “I feel so bad/sick/painful”
• “I am in pain”

- not realizing that by thinking about the pain my focus will only be in the experience of pain instead of in finding a solution/cure for the pain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget that stopping and breathing is the first step towards a solution.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe when sick, in pain or otherwise not aligned with my physical existence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when breathing and focusing on my physical didn't take the pain away, returning to the mind by thinking “this is not working”, not realizing that self-aware breathing is not a magic trick that will fix everything for me, but a tool to return me to what is actually here from which I am going to have to actually move myself with conscious effort to get anywhere.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect the tool of breathing and physical self-awareness to solve my issues for me, not realizing that this tool is just for showing me the way which I'm then responsible to walk myself.

When and as I am in pain, sick or otherwise non-aligned with my physical body – I stop, I breathe and I locate the source of the non-alignement in my body. I then take the necessary action to solve, help or lighten the issue. I will not accept and allow myself to participate in thoughts that magnify the experience of pain within and as the realization that then my focus will only be in the experience of pain and not in the solution with which the experience will permanently fade.

Day 234: "Having a romantic interest" as an addiction

15052013

[Today I opened up a point in private writings, here's some excerpt and SF on it.]

[Here I'm speaking mostly from the perspective of childhood experiences.]

Rejection. My romantic interests have rejected me ever since the first one. There have been few mutual ones, and some that I haven't responded to. I have built up this hope and this positive experience of another, positive view of another, expectations of the other being the most wonderful person ever, and when I have been denied access to this I have blamed myself for it – I have not been good enough. And it has been like all of my foundation has been crumbled away: I have laid out myself on the image of another person, a person I have not even known, thinking of this image as the “earth beneath my feet” because the energy charge of this has been so strong that it has helped me survive my daily adversities of being bullied, isolated and self-abused. So “having a romantic interest” has been an addiction to me, a drug to keep me going, something with which to replace self-support. Romantic interests and the related fantasies have been my “rosy glasses”, my distraction, my escape from the actual issues haunting me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get addicted to the energy I have received from having a romantic interest, as I have used this energy to fuel me in my daily living which was consuming to me because of all the adversity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose one person among a selection of suitable people (usually being physically available within my daily living and being approximately in my age group has been enough) according to the energetic reaction I have had towards this person on first encounter (“first impression”) as related to others available, choosing the one towards which my reaction was most overwhelming and most positive – then placing this person in a “special position” where I would start building fantasies and scenarios around this person according to the model my world had presented me (through movies, fairytales, books, media, celebrities), building up expectations, hopes and desires that these scenarios would come true so that I could release the anticipation and experience all the energy I had been promised, thus also creating fear that this person would no longer “be available” and that he would be “stolen” from me by someone “better” than me, fearing that all the scenarios and hopes and desires and plans I had invested in would collapse, because I would then collapse as the hole within me that I ignored with all this is still there, waiting to be noticed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build fantasies and scenarios of “security” and “safety” around this one selected person because I did not feel safe or secure within my world and within myself and instead of looking at myself for the cause and remedy searched for a “quick fix” from outside of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to repeat this scenario time and time again without realizing that the problem is within me, that it is not about “having the wrong person” or me being “not good enough” - it is this desire to have a romantic interest that is causing me trouble because I have been clearly unable to live without one as I have always latched myself onto another after the last attempt has “failed”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have not felt secure, safe or stable within my living, to search for security, safety and stability from other people instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that my “lack” is due to my immaturity as a human being which is the result of me growing up in a world that is immature.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the elements that I lack due to an imbalanced childhood from others, not realizing that it is not another's responsibility to give me what I lack so that I could live as a seemingly complete, yet actually incomplete being for the rest of my days.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is my responsibility to grow back my “missing limbs”, because when given by others it is but a “wooden leg” the giving of which consumes the other, and that me growing out of my own immaturity is the only known option that considers the best of all, not just my self-interest.

This leaves me with the question: why do I feel insecure, unstable and unsafe? Knowing the basics of developmental psychology, I'd say something in my process of growing up has been disturbed as a child – but when and how? This may have something to do with my relationship to my father. During my childhood he was “never there” because he was always working, and when he was actually present it was be uncertain whether he would be stressed and tired or really happy and cheerful – so I could never really trust him to “always be there for me” because sometimes he was obviously too tired to put up with my child-existence, and even though he tried to cover this up I of course noticed. So maybe I'm looking for that stability, that reliability that was never there from other men, trying to find the stability that I was supposed to learn from my father/parents but never did. Children learn by mimicking: I was never shown stability, safety, certainty, security in terms of a being's “inner balance”. Thus I did not learn this as a child, when all I had to mimic was unreliable emotional expression and self-abuse.

So, right. Whatever it has been, I have picked this all up as a child when I have actually been helpless about my life. What I didn't pick up when it would have been easy, I'm going to have to practice now when it's difficult, and that can only happen through consistent practicing: stopping the pattern, questioning it, not living according to it, directing myself otherwise. Moment after moment after moment. Walking myself out of this mess is not going to be easy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be consistent about stopping the related mind-patterns [which I opened up in private writings] as I have not realized that walking myself out of a dependency / addiction is the most difficult thing I will ever do because I resist it with all of my mind, and that it thus requires all of my effort to sort it out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop these patterns every time they occur and instead allow them to run for a while and only notice and stop them until they accumulate enough fear/desire within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be lazy about my writings as I have not been specific enough to actually assist and support me to overcome these mind-patterns.

I commit myself to map out these mind-patterns in full detail so that I can flag them and actually notice and immediately stop them when and as they occur.

I commit myself to no longer follow these mind patterns because I see, realize and understand that they will only lead to fear and/or desire and that I will end up looping in-between these polarities – neither one of which is based on reality.

I commit myself to write about the self-suppression related to this point. [Not mentioned here.]

Day 202: Skipping a day

12042013

Alright. I had to skip a day of writing for the first time because I was busy working day and night. At first I felt guilty about this and tried to think of some way to squeeze writing into my schedule, but then I realized that it is simply not possible and that the purpose of writing is not writing itself but to assist me in my practical daily living, which is what I am now busy with. So I decided to focus on my practical application and assessing the current state of my process after 200 days of writing (that's, like, more than half a year!).

One thing that I noted yesterday was a new kind of certainty. I've been focusing my process mainly on human interaction for the past few months, because this is a basic component of my life that is clearly underdeveloped, and I have had a good way to assess this process as I work in a cafe 5 days a week, repeating the same information / committing the same tasks to various people numerous times a day: if something is different in my repetitious routine I always notice.

Slowly yet surely I have been able to work through my insecurity points and to establish a stable and reliable foundation for myself, within myself, of myself. I am noticing the change from destructive insecurity into a frail yet unwavering certainty in all areas of my life, or at least in all that I have lived through and am living as at the moment; who knows what's to come. So this certainty was something that I noticed yesterday as I was simply working – knowing what needs to be done and doing it.

Another thing I saw as I assessed myself and the way I work is that I have made progress with the stress point. I faced moments where I would have previously fallen into despair and given up on everything but now instead just stopped and forgave the stressful thoughts when and as they surfaced, located the according tension/pain in my physical, corrected my physical by breathing, relaxing and moving and kept on working after the stress was released. For example there was a moment where I was trying to put a thread through the eye of a needle and my eyes were starting to get tired because I had had a long day and my physical needed rest. As my eyes didn't focus properly and I didn't get the thread through after a few attempts I noticed a tension/pain at a certain spot of my neck/shoulders, and I realized that this is the “disability point” with which I disable myself from doing something. I realized that if left untended the tension/pain would once again lead to the thought “I can't do this” which would lead to frustration and giving up. And so I stopped, released the tension by “breathing through it” (relaxing the muscles while exhaling) with a couple of breaths, and I continued with my work with renewed focus and care.

Now as I look at my experience today, as my work and hurry still continues with the same intensity, I notice a constant tension in my shoulders that wasn't there yesterday. I realize that this is an unresolved stress point that has to do with martyrdom and sleep, as I only slept a couple of hours last night. I noticed backchat and thoughts regarding this before sleeping and they have come up today as well, such as wanting to complain about sleeping too little, glorifying myself for my sacrifice and expecting praise because of my suffering. I have not acted upon any of this and have simply kept on breathing and focusing on the fact that right now I am awake and that this is all that matters; when I get tired I will deal with it according to the situation. There's also a fear that “I will not make it through the day”, which points out to me exactly what I expect from my day, and these expectations I need to deal with.

Days 191-192: Avoiding eye contact

31032013

I have been going through my insecurity issues and I have located one of its physical manifestations which is avoiding eye contact. I do not do this all the time walking around with my eyes in the ground, no, I look at people quite a lot actually – but there are certain triggers that “make me” turn my eyes away or avoid the look of another even if I know another is trying to reach me through eye contact.

I experimented with this while sitting in the bus. I usually sit on the benches that face all the other benches with my back towards the way the bus is driving, so I have a good shot at making contact with others, plus I like people-watching. I noticed a following thought pattern while looking at people and meeting their eyes:

• Why does he/she look at me (like that)?
  • Does he/she like me?
  • Does he/she not like me?
  • Do I look weird?
  • Maybe my hair looks nice?
  • Maybe they think I look cool.
  • Maybe they think I look odd.

And sometimes I go on following a certain thought and I create further guesses, assumptions, worst-case scenarios etc. about it, for example with “Do I look weird?” I start going through all aspects of my visual appearance, assessing whether it's possible that some of them is off or “wrong” or who this person would be if they disliked a trait like that, “maybe he's superficial because he doesn't like my clothes” - and all of this is absolutely absurd because none of it is true; it's just guesswork in my mind as the images of people I play with in my mind are not the equivalent of the actual people who live and breathe in front of me and whom I do NOT know and thus cannot assess/evaluate in a well-informed way.

So when the initial question “Why does he/she look at me (like that)?” appears, I turn my eyes away and start guessing for reasons and explanations. Even in situations where I have been the one to look at another first (which actually is in most of the cases) I react to the other looking back by instantly believing the look to “mean” something – that it bears a “meaning” other than that of simply looking at another, which is to receive visual information about one's surroundings and possibly to communicate. I mean, when I look at people I do it just to look at people. I don't do it to provoke reactions, to flirt, to irritate, to invade, to judge – I look at people just to look at people, to see who's present and to be open to any and all possibilities. So why do I fear others to do the exact opposite?

When I asked myself this question I came across two fears that link to specific memories.

1. I fear I will be rejected / I fear I will cause a negative reaction [memory: when I was 15 I looked at a strange teenage boy in the eye and he responded by saying aggressively “what the fuck are you looking at”. I reacted with intense feelings of rejection and shame.]
2. I fear my look will be misinterpreted to mean sexual interest [memory: I was around 15-16 when I was shopping for clothes and I happened to look at a teenage boy in the shop. He approached me and tried talking to me, I got frightened and fled.]

I have gone over the first (1) memory before, but apparently it is still linked to my fear of rejection somehow. I have realized that the boy in that situation reacted from whichever state he was in before I looked at him; I remember him looking like he was distressed and myself feeling sympathy towards him (this links to The Healer Character). My look was simply a trigger to his reaction and not the cause of it. I took his reaction personally and blamed myself for it, thinking “I shouldn't have done that, I will never do that again”.

The boy in the second (2) memory was an immigrant kid and I remember this being the first time I was ever in direct contact with a male of my age who was not Finnish – and I wasn't much in direct contact with Finnish boys either due to shyness. I realized there to be some cultural differences at play because boys who I was used to didn't approach girls in such a straightforward way. I got freaked out because the concept of relationships was really distant and alien to me, and so I just escaped the whole interaction and basically ran away from him.

So I'm looking at a fear of reactions that are “not wanted”. Why do I not want these reactions from others? Why do I resent these reactions from others? Why can't I just take them as they are – as the reactions of others and nothing personal – but instead find myself powerless in front of them?

--

01042013

Alright, continuing with this. I want to try a really practical approach this time. So the pattern I repeat is the following:

• I look at people
• I meet the eyes of another person
• I react with fear
• I turn my eyes away
• I go into guesswork
• I make conclusions, assumptions and guesses of another's motives
• I take action based on my conclusions, assumptions and guesses
  • I look back to the other / I keep avoiding the look of another / [other action]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another judges me / thinks less of me / attacks me when I look at them because of experiences in my past where I have created a survival pattern based on single interactions where the action [I look at another] has been followed with [negative response] which has led me to [feel rejected].

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another will judge me / attack me based on no other information about me than the fact that I am looking at him/her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that others are (most likely) just as afraid of me as I am of them, and that any form of aggression that I may face when simply looking at another from a clear starting point is a sign of the other being afraid and defending themselves through aggression – and that the negative response of another is thus nothing personal towards me even though it may serve as feedback if I choose to utilize it so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the negative responses of others personally as if what another accepts and allows themselves to live as was on my responsibility even when my intentions have not been to provoke another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for the reactions of others and to look for flaws in myself to explain, excuse and justify the reactions of others – not realizing that this is to live as fear as I allow the reactions of others to define me out of the fear of not being accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ask “what's wrong with me” when/as another reacts negatively to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ask “what's wrong with me” when there is a risk that another may have focused their attention on me and might be forming a negative opinion of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how many “maybe's” and “what if's” I participate in in the above-mentioned situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive looking at another person to be “risky” because there's a possibility that the other will form a negative opinion of me and choose their actions according to their opinion of me and not according to who I really am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as the above-mentioned behavior that I fear from others by forming opinions of others based on immediate guesswork and choosing my actions according to these opinions instead of realizing I know nothing of the other person and that, if necessary, I will have to find out from the person him/herself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not embrace myself as I look at another person to engage in eye contact as myself, but instead already perceive myself to be less than who I am and escape the eye contact as I react with the fear of revealing myself to myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to walk around not embracing myself, not realizing that my fear of others is actually caused by my reluctance to stand within/as myself when faced with the eyes of others as mirrors of me – that the reluctance to be myself causes me to fear others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to turn my eyes away from another when and as I have reacted with fear to meeting another's eyes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have reacted with fear to meeting the eyes of another, to retreat and escape by turning my eyes away instead of stopping the fear, breathing and relaxing myself to just be within the eye contact, realizing that the fear is not valid as there is no real practical reason to be afraid as there is nothing in the situation that could actually harm me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear another's look as I have connected this to rejection and all that follows it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to charge the act of [another looking at me] with the fear of rejection, assigning [look] as the image where eyes turn to me with a negative value as I associate [look] with all the consequences of [negative opinions] (rejection, unfair judgement, being left outside the group, gossip, loneliness, not having friends).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a look is just a look – a being with eyes taking in visual information in order to interact with its environment – and that any and all other values assigned to the act of looking are conceived in the mind and are in fact imaginary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my negative connotation to having eye contact with others is in fact imaginary as it overrides the physical reality with meanings that only have value in the mind-reality.

02042013

When and as I notice myself reacting with fear to meeting another's eyes and turning my eyes away to escape the attention of the other – I stop, I breathe and I realize that the attention of another is not in fact dangerous in any way. I realize that this is a habit that occurs when I do not embrace myself nor stand within and as myself when and as I interact with others. I then stabilize myself in breath, ground myself back into my body as physical self-awareness and look for the reason of my insecurity – why do I not embrace myself within this moment? How am I making myself less than I actually am? Once my starting point is clear I return to the interaction if possible/necessary.

I commit myself to stop believing in the assumptions, conclusions and guesses I make about others by working through my habits, patterns and beliefs according to which I have organized the reality into my subjective perspective of the reality so that my experience of the reality would be easier to comprehend.

I commit myself to stop blaming myself / taking the credit for the reactions of others by no longer asking myself “what's wrong with me” when another reacts negatively / “I wonder what's good about me” when another reacts positively.

I commit myself to realize it is useless to worry about the opinions and perceptions others may or may not have of me as all that matters is who I actually am HERE within breath and flesh and bone – and that if there is a practical reason for clarifying whether there is an opinion/perception of me and whether it is affecting another's actions or not, I may simply discuss this with the other.

I commit myself to challenge myself to break this habit by keeping my eyes up on the eye level and in front of me, not in the ground, in the sky or out the window, in order to be open and welcoming to the eyes of others.

Day 190: Practical changes in daily schedule

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I am now reviewing and re-planning my daily schedule and I have planned an outline for how I am going to change my practical daily routine to support me in the best possible way. I am currently in the process of changing my focus from work and hobbies into studying and replacing entertainment / other stuff I'm letting go with activities that actually support me, such as exercise and socializing.

The outline I laid out is as follows:

• 6 hrs sleep (currently from around 12am-6am)
• 1 hrs yoga, or other form of exercise (walking, jogging, dancing etc.)
• 1 hr breakfast and news (newspaper/news websites, e-mail, social networks)
• 3 hrs study/work
• 1 hr household work and lunch (off the computer)
• 3 hrs study/work
• 1 hr exercise/outdoors (possibly shopping groceries)
• 1 hr cooking and eating dinner
• 3 hrs study/work
• 2 hrs daily writing
• 2 hrs undefined leisure time (off the computer if possible)

Note: the contents of the study/work phases may vary and they may also include daily writing – I'm going to have to test this and re-shape it once I see how it works.

I'm going to have to test whether this schedule actually functions or not, and this is going to take a while because I will not be able to fully step into it yet. I still have my day job, unfinished projects and a 3-month trip in Asia/Oceania coming up, and I will be able to fully transfer myself into this schedule once I return from my trip in August. But I am able to test parts of this and try this out for a little while before I fly off, and I will also be able to hold on to parts of it while I travel.

Why I find it important to have a daily schedule laid out like this is that it supports me to remember all that there is to be done, plus it functions as practical physical support. I have to reserve time for nutrition, exercise and sleep, as well as socializing – yet none of these may take any more time than necessary because that would be over-indulgence which is based on self-interest. It is simply not practical to eat dinner for three hours, lol, daydreaming with each bite.

I need to be strict about the study/work phases to see that I actually dedicate enough time for it and make effective use of it. I am currently applying to study education sciences in the university of my home town, and when/if I get in the studies there will determine some of my schedule and also assist me in being steadfast and consistent about my studies. (Quite awesome to see that the schedules of a school are there to actually support me to get stuff done and not to bully me. Lol.)

I am probably also going to have to work while I study to support myself financially. The social welfare money that is paid for students is barely enough to cover my rent and living expenses, and so if I want to eat something besides spaghetti I need to work part-time – and I am cool with that as long as it doesn't take too much time out of my studies. If I could get a job from the field of education that would also serve to benefit my studies.

If I do not get into university I am going to have to mainly work to support myself, but I still intend to work less than before and dedicate my time to independent studying.

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So, now to review how I have tested out my schedule today. I woke up after six hours of sleep before my alarm went off, and this made me satisfied because I have been unsure about whether my sleeping schedule is working out or not.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my sleeping routine is not working out because I have faced criticism and doubt when talking about it to others and started to doubt it myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my sleeping routine and formulate backchat, thoughts and worst-case scenarios (“what if I'm wrong?”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my sleeping routine would prove ineffective because that would mean I could not keep my current routine which I have found effective.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think and worry that my sleep routine might be ineffective without looking at how it actually is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear questioning my sleeping routine and testing it out again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to my sleep routine because it allows me more waking hours in a day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give value other than practical to my sleeping routine as I have glorified it to be a “time-saver”, this including the word “saviour” which would imply that I'm not the one doing the work (getting myself out of bed / into bed) but that some outside force is “saving me” from too much sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not view my sleeping routine as simply a practical part of my daily routine which supports my daily living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself when I have slept for more than 6 hours.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty when I have slept for more than 6 hours.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in judgement/guilt the first thing in the morning when waking up, not realizing how much this negative starting point affects the upcoming day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be effective and sleep as little as possible and thus get disappointed each time I sleep “too much” (more than 6 hours) – not realizing that my body requires what it requires and that the requirement is a result of how I have lived the preceding day.

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I commit myself to carry responsibility for myself and my physical well-being by allowing myself enough sleep and reserving time for sleeping, and also by getting myself out of bed when it is time to wake up and start a new day (alarm goes off / I wake up naturally) to prevent sleeping too much which is but to escape one's life and responsibility as a living being.

I commit myself to be flexible about my sleeping routine, not participating in any judgement/guilt that comes up when I sleep a bit more than my usual 6 hours, as I see, realize and understand that sometimes my body requires more rest when it has been under more strain (a lot of work and/or exercise or if I am sick/injured).

I commit myself to review my sleeping schedule from time to time and to adjust it when/if necessary.

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After I woke up (7am) I got out of bed with my feeling of satisfaction and I went on to make tea. I then noticed that I was not yet hungry, as I rarely am as soon as I wake up, and I remembered that I had made a decision to start doing yoga every morning before breakfast because it has to be done with an empty stomach and serves as an awesome wake-up. I remembered I can't do yoga now because I am menstruating, but then I realized that I might as well replace the yoga with some other physical activity, and I put on some clothes and had a walk outside. I didn't walk for one hour today but only 20 minutes or so, but I'll start off with that.

When I was walking I wasn't really here. I was already planning on writing out this schedule and how “cool” this act to exercise in the morning would sound in it – “I'm so effective, yes, now I'm doing it, this is it, this is how it should be done” - lol, and I was just completely ignoring everything around me and had no idea where I was even walking because I was so caught up in the thoughts that came up after I had decided to have a walk.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exercise because it would look good in my schedule – like a trophy of effectiveness that proves I am active and alive and “doing it!” and all that shit. (lol)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exercise from an unclear starting point and thus miss the whole point of exercise, which is (when walking outdoors) to breathe deep and get fresh air, get my body moving and warmed up, and to take notice of my surroundings and interact with the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be blind to my surroundings while walking outside.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not breathe with all of my lungs while walking outside.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not focus on the movement of my body when walking outside but instead walk around on autopilot which does not serve as the best possible warm-up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not focus on what I am doing and instead think about what I'll do afterwards.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not focus on my morning exercise and to do it from the starting point of waking up, getting air, moving and interacting, and that I have instead accepted and allowed myself to exercise from the starting point of wanting to look good in the eyes of others and polishing my self-image.

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I commit myself to clear my starting point with self-forgiveness every morning before I exercise to ensure I get the most out of it.

I commit myself to focus on breathing, moving and awareness of my surroundings while walking outside and I commit myself to take note of whatever resistances, thoughts or backchat arise to waver my focus.

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Once I was finished with breakfast & news I moved onto sewing for the theatre project that we are currently busy with. I am working on a really difficult fabric the handling of which requires a lot of time, patience and skill, and I after about an hour of work I noticed frustration towards the fabric because the difficulties were taking a lot of time.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated at the fabric for “being difficult” and “making things harder”, not realizing that this fabric is what it is and that this is the reality with which I need to work with – this fabric is not going to “get easier” with blame.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hope for a quicker way of doing the work, not realizing that straightening out the fabric is necessary before I can measure and cut it, and that the nature of the fabric is such that it takes a lot of time – there simply is no detour – the only way to make my work more efficient is to practice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to worry about taking “too much time” on working with straightening the fabric – not realizing that this is the task I am facing and that this part of it will require plenty of time – and that I am thus not taking “too much time” on it but the exact amount of time it requires.

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I commit myself to breathe while I work and focus on the task ahead of me, and when and as my mind intervenes with thoughts, fears, doubts and backchat, I commit myself to stop, breathe, sort the arising points out with self-forgiveness and continue with my work.

I commit myself to give myself the time I need for the work I am doing, as I see and realize that the work will take the exact time it requires for it to be practically possible.

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I'll continue writing about these practical changes as I walk myself through them.