Day 410: Social anxiety - introversion as a learned quality

29082014

Yesterday evening I went to visit a friend's commune for the first time. The preceding few days had been very stressful and tiresome for me and I felt stretched, tense and exhausted.

When I got to the place and sat down with the people, I noticed that a calm came over me. I noticed that as compared to the other social situations where I had been for example during the same day, these people appeared to have no expectations of me. We didn't know each other, and the activities that people were engaged in didn't require anything of me unless I wanted to contribute. As I realized that I was in a space where I didn't have to strain myself, I started relaxing myself by allowing myself to focus on myself and my well-being only. I was in dire need of my own attention (i.e. I really needed to rest my body) and so I allowed myself to simply be and let others construct the situation.

I eventually slowed myself down more than I have in a long while. I was simply in breath, observing myself and my motions. I realized how much I stress about social situations and what a relief it was to be in one where I didn't require anything of myself. The keywords that night were: “I don't need to” (“ei mun tartte”). Whenever a thought came saying I “should” do something, I released it with the realization that no, I shouldn't, as these requirements are not practical but ones that serve to build and uphold my self-image and self-ideal. I was forgiving myself for setting myself standards striving for perfectionism.

This state of peace continued on to this morning, and because it was in such contrast with most of my experiences from the entire summer, I noticed when it started to crumble. I went out of the house with my partner to have lunch with some of his friends whom I hadn't met before. After the lunch I had become withdrawn, anxious and tense (or “weird” as my partner expressed it – the contrast was pretty noticeable). After writing about it now I realized that after we left the house, a series of “I should” -thoughts had been triggered by different situations, which brought up stress as I attempted to attain to these thoughts and judged myself when I didn't.

• “I should keep up with him” / “I should be able to keep up with him”
• “I should make a good impression on these people”
• “I should be able to pay for my own expenses”
• “I should talk with these people”
• “I should participate in the discussion”
• “I should be more independent” / “I should make an initiative to ...”
• “I will look stupid if I do that – I should look impressive”

The thing is, I'm starting to see what my social difficulties consist of: these lines of code containing the words “I should” - or rather, the thoughts or lines of code as experiences and not so much as words spoken in my mind. I've been what one might call an “introvert” ever since some time in elementary school when I started being bullied, and the thing is, I remember the time before that: I know I haven't always found social situations difficult, and that introversion at least for me is not an inherent quality. It is something that got created somewhere along the way when I learned that there were unwritten rules to socializing that could be broken with dire consequences. I didn't know how to cope, so my response was to withdraw.

I'll continue with specific self-forgiveness on the “I should” -statements above.

Days 352-354: Alcohol

16-18112013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Days 301-302: Unattainable beauty

27-28082013

Artist: Gabriel Aceves Higareda

Because an ego point surfaced a few days ago I've now been opening up a certain point in my past: the birth or the trigger for my self-hate when I was an adolescent. My older sister was a beauty pageant and a model and she succeeded well in her career, and because the world systems defined her as “beautiful” and rewarded her for her “beauty”, she became my definition of beauty. Thus when I did not look like her – I compared my pre-teen body to her adult one – I thought that I must be something that is “not beautiful”: I started to believe that I was ugly because I didn't look like my beauty ideal. I did not realize that I couldn't have looked like that no matter how hard I tried simply because my body wasn't grown up yet. I hated various parts of myself and didn't want to look in the mirror or at pictures taken of me. The mental weight of my issues pulled me down and so I became slouched, chubby and weak.

When I did start to mature physically around the age 15-17 I became infatuated with myself. There is a specific turning point that I remember around the age 14 where I was sitting in a car and happened to look at myself in the mirror above my head, and I saw myself and I thought that I looked pretty: my face wasn't ugly in the way I remembered it to have been and it had become closer to my ideal, especially when I looked at it from a certain perspective and kept a certain kind of an expression. For the years to come I became glued to the mirror and the camera to bathe in the feelgood of finally looking good.

What I realized when writing a timeline of these memories is that every time I still these days make myself look “good” and admire my beauty – be it by putting on make-up or making an appearance in an event or putting nice pictures of myself on facebook – I do it to compensate for the self-hate that I still harbor. As a child I thought that looking like a child was bad and ugly and I wanted to be something else; now I happen to look like my ideal because my ideal matches my age, body type and gender; but the fear (and the knowledge) that this 20-something phase of my physical existence will pass is there, waiting beneath the surface, ready to sneak into my actions with small steps, “maybe I should apply moisturizer more often”, “it won't do me any harm to use these anti-aging creams, right?”, “maybe just a little bit of cosmetic surgery”, “I'll photoshop these pictures just a little” - and that's where the paranoia takes over and I become obsessed with holding on to what I once was instead of allowing my body to change. Of course not all changes are inevitable – I don't have to become fat with age, for instance – but as I age some changes are bound to happen. So every time I “soothe” myself by showing myself how good I look, getting that energy high, I state to myself: “It's OK that I was once ugly” - when in fact I have never been ugly. It's my definition of beauty that is fucked up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when my mother and sister told me I should lose weight they wanted me to do it because I was “ugly”, filtering the reality through my self-definition, not realizing that they were more likely actually concerned about my health – and even if they weren't, it would have been a valid point for me to look at.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at my sister and create an ideal of what visual “beauty” is using her as a mold – her body shape and size, her posture, her clothing style – because the world told me that she was “beautiful” and that her success was because of her “beauty”, not realizing that she is also hard-working and intelligent and created her success through consistency rather than just being immediately awarded for an external quality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that it's valid to measure a person's worth by his/her “beauty” and that some people are “more beautiful” and some are “less beautiful” because I saw this done to people in the beauty pageants my sister took part in and everyone being OK with this arrangement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive it is OK for me to measure my worth by my “beauty” as defined by the ideal I created according to what the world showed me, and I forgive myself that as a result I accepted and allowed myself to judge myself as “not beautiful” and start resenting myself because I believed and perceived that if I was not “beautiful” I could not succeed – I'd be a loser.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I cannot succeed if I am not what I defined as “beautiful” - that the world would punish me instead of rewarding me – because this is what I saw being done in the world: arbitrary external terms dictating how a person was treated by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become spiteful towards my sister for being “the beautiful one”, asking the world in bitterness why she became “beautiful” and I did not, blaming her for being the comparison point next to which I appeared “less” - not realizing that she was not responsible for me comparing myself to her as she never encouraged me to do this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a hidden spiteful conflict of comparison between me and my sister where I tried to compensate for my “lesser beauty” with the skills I possessed and she didn't - the skills I had practiced and she hadn't.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that because of how I looked I would be a “loser” in this world and never find acceptance, and to thus feel excluded from others whom I perceived to look OK (not “ugly” like me) as I perceived and believed them to be unconditionally accepted because they looked “normal”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that nobody else among my friends, peers and age group felt isolated because of their looks because from my perspective they all looked OK – never stopping to realize that it would be quite the chance if I was truly The Only One who was “ugly”, and that this, too, was a point of ego where I separated myself from others to feel “special”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate my physical body because of it's visual aspects that didn't fit a collection of traits (the beauty ideal) I had compiled arbitrarily.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what the world told me to be “beautiful” was based on the admiration and idolization of youth and an arbitrarily chosen specific kind of a body type and even ethnicity, and that the reason these traits were advertised was to uphold the sex system, the racial hierarchy, the gender inequality, the competition and the entertainment/distraction system – and that the beauty ideal had nothing to do with actual beauty – health of body and soul - but only seeked to pull specific reactions and responses from people to keep the circus running.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for that energetic high I get when I perceive myself to “look good” because it supports my self-image (“I am pretty”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself as “pretty” when my looks started to remind myself of my beauty ideal so that I would no longer “have to” be “ugly” and would “get to” be “pretty” - I would be a winner instead of a loser in the world system of competition.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear every time I perceive my “beauty” to be “decreasing” or to have gone “missing”, reacting to the threat to my self-image which is my comfort in a world system of competition (“I am pretty”, thus “I am winning”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to keep my physical appearance such that reminds me of my beauty ideal as I fear that without it I will lose my dominant position in the world system.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my body is here to practically serve me as a vessel in this physical reality, and that the only thing that undoubtedly matters is the practical function of my body and its different parts – the muscles, bones, fat, tissue, organs – and that my body will adjust to my life according to its requirements, which may be different at different times of my life, meaning that my body is most likely going to change and morph.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my body is in constant change as there are cells dying and being born every moment, and that it is thus not possible for me to “stay the same” without this stagnation having serious consequences to my body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent the changes in my physical body because they have broken the self-image in which I am “beautiful” (a definition I created as an adolescent based on my sister), not realizing that the changes in my physical body are a direct result of how I live and that they can be taken as an indication of a malfunction, which can then be directed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the longer I use my body the more it wears out, and that no matter how well I maintain my body it is one day going to be so worn out that it stops functioning.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I went to appear in the children's singing contest, to want to dress up and make myself look as pretty as possible because I saw this to be a good chance to draw positive reactions from others with my pretty appearance and thus get validation through their reactions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to manipulate the audience into admiring me by making myself appear just about flashy, confident and bold enough to appear “dominant” in a slightly intimidating way, for which I compensated with my soft and pleasant behavior. (I'm not sure how intentional this was, but this is what happened, and this is the response I usually get from people.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mold my appearance to attract a certain kind of an outcome or a specific reaction from others, not realizing that this is manipulation in which I not only trick others but also limit myself extensively by having already decided what I want to experience, not allowing myself to live one breath at a time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear appearing in public because there is a chance of public embarrassment and to thus try and prepare myself as well as possible by i.e. dressing up to minimize the risk of embarrassment/failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not admit that without something to boost my confidence – be it a role, a costume or a script – I am nervous to appear in public, because I don't believe that I am good enough to pass the eye of the public without being judged.

Old definition of “beauty” (in a person/woman):

Skinny, nice curves, big eyes, full lips, tall, small feet, narrow face, long neck, shiny hair, white teeth; mysteriousness, confidence, seriousness, elegance.

New definition of “beauty” (in a person):

Whatever is healthy, practical and in accordance with all Life.

I commit myself to search for beauty in myself and others according to my new definition of beauty.

I commit myself to stop assessing people according to their looks unless there is a practical reason for it.

I commit myself to flag the moments when I assess/judge another person by their appearance and to open them in writing.

When and as I see myself assessing my appearance, I commit myself to stop, breathe and ask myself whether it has a practical reason or not. I will accept and allow no bullshit, excuses or justifications, and I will dig around myself for as long as it takes to find the truth. If there is no practical reason, I ask myself what I fear and what I'm trying to cover up under my appearance. I release the point in self-forgiveness and breathing.

When and as I react to my looks with fear of aging, I stop, I breathe and I realize that the condition of my body is a result of how I live. I breathe through the reaction and remind myself that I am still HERE, that I am the same no matter what my body looks like. I investigate the trigger of my reaction (i.e. a wrinkle on my face) to see what has happened in my body for it to become like this – what have I done so that my body changed? I search for a solution accordingly.

I commit myself to stop trying to dominate and manipulate others with my appearance.

I commit myself to stop seeking for acceptance, approval and attention from others by using my appearance as a tool.

I commit myself to challenge myself to appear in public without a role, a mask, a script, a costume or anything else to “back me up”, and I commit myself to investigate what kind of “back-ups” I use to boost my confidence.

Day 294: Dressing up

20082013

 Me in 1993 (?) and 2012 dressing up the best I can!

I was asked to be one of the judges in a children's singing contest and I agreed to go. The night before the event I was thinking of what to wear to the contest because I realized that these children will look at me as a role model: I would be appear to be in a position of authority, plus for all the small girls a young woman like me does show an example of a kind – and as it turned out, I was the only 20-something in the jury, which makes me the person there that the children most likely relate to, as everyone else was the age of their mothers.

So I thought to myself: I am giving these kids the model of a woman, the model of a grown-up, the model of a human being. What do I want to show them? Or in other words: If I wear this and this, who am I while wearing those clothes and do I want kids to see that?

I realized that in terms of clothing there were many bad choices I could have made. I thought about a really neat black dress with a business woman type of feel, and I realized that I would wear a dress like this to gain authority, to appear powerful, and I would thus set an example that women have to be intimidating and serious, or even man-like to be appreciated.

I concluded that I would wear colour, I would be feminine and that I would show kids that one doesn't have to be serious about clothing – that it's OK to play around with what you wear, because what you wear doesn't define you. With the clothes I wore I felt comfortable, light, mobile, girly and silly. I noticed that I was nervous/anxious about “setting an example” so I kept myself in breath throughout the contest, trying to keep myself as “me” as possible. It was a little challenging with so many eyes following my movements and drinking up everything.

After the show I received feedback not only about my clothing but also about how I carried myself: I had appeared “graceful like a movie star”. That comment showed me that it's the combination of wearing clothes as self-expression and the way you carry yourself within the clothing that creates your appearance – not just one or the other. Sometimes clothing becomes an armor behind which I like to hide, as if the clothes would make me “bigger” than I am (this is the case with the black dress), and I have to start paying more attention to what I wear and why, so that with every piece of clothing there would be no fear but only self-expression – and practicality, duh, lol.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that with what I wear and why I set an example for the future generations on what the purpose and use of clothing is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of fear, I teach the future generations that clothing is used so that we may hide behind them and thus present an image of who we would like to be, believing our own fabric facade and hoping that everyone else buys into it too.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of practicality I teach the future generations that clothing is used to help our bodies adjust to the conditions of our living environments and to assist and support us in our activities. (This is why I never wear jeans, lol)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I wear clothes out of self-expression I teach the future generations that clothing is used to express ourselves to the world as who we are, not as our self-image, and that this can be fun, enjoyable, lively, not serious and non-personal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I wear does not define me – that I could wear goth, hippie, business, farm, hobo, hollywood or prisoner clothes and remain the same within all of them – that I am not the costume I wear but the being within those clothes carrying those clothes and moving within their limits.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to what I wear, morphing my posture and personality to “fit” the clothes I am wearing, not realizing that real life is not about theatre stereotypes and that I can in fact re-define the clothes and disassemble my image of what a person carrying them must be like by stopping, breathing and through the touch sensation feeling what the clothes are, testing their qualities, how they move, stretch, weigh and breathe and carrying them according to who I am / who I become through creation within and as breath as self-expression within these kinds of clothes.

I commit myself to pay attention to what I wear and why.

When and as I see myself thinking of wearing a piece of clothing out of fear – to present an image, to gain power, to be a character – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am not utilizing clothing for practicality and self-expression but for fear and hiding. I ask myself what I am trying to convey with the particular clothes and why. I realize it is not necessary for me to present a dishonest appearance in order to gain something. I forgive myself for the fear and I release it by facing it and breathing it out. I re-assess the situation I was dressing up for and I choose my clothes based on practicality and self-expression asking myself what I would actually want to convey in that situation without fear driving me.

I commit myself to explore clothing by slowing myself down when dressing up to actually feel the clothes on me and what their qualities and limits are, and to re-shape the clothes if it serves a purpose; I have scissors and a sewing machine, so better make use of them!

Day 224: A new haircut

04052013

I never knew I could stretch my neck that long!

Yesterday I got a new haircut. I had a few reasons for it:

• short hair is practical when traveling
• short hair is comfortable during the summer
• my hair hadn't been cut in years and the condition of the ends was starting to be poor
• I wanted to challenge myself with something I'm not used to.

Now, the first three deal with practicality and I fully stand by them, and this new cut serves this purpose well. This challenge, though, really did prove to be a challenge!

I wanted my hair cut shorter than it's ever been and also stripped from any particular shape, form or style. I also wanted to test whether this hair type would turn into an afro when short enough. Interestingly enough, this hair type does turn into an afro – but not in the way I imagined it to, and this is where all my reactions start to pour in, lol.

My first thoughts when seeing myself in the mirror with the new cut were “it IS an afro!”, “I look like my father?!”, “I look like a boy”. So the first things I reacted to were 1) the expectations I had set about the new hair, and 2) the loss of femininity, which I will return to. The hairdresser told me that my hair type goes into a “shock” when cut and will “curl up” in a couple of weeks – and so now my hair is somewhat straight, the cut doesn't really look like anything but a bush and I have no choice but to wait for the hair to become “as it's supposed to” - if it ever does. For all I know, my hair could decide to stop growing right now.

So I became resistant to go out because I was afraid of the reactions I would receive because of this hair. I eventually had to, and it was interesting to see how I began interpreting people's gestures according to my negative expectations. For example, a man in the bus glanced at me and after that didn't look at me again – and I interpreted this to mean he had been “checking me out” and was now “avoiding me” because I wasn't “feminine enough”. I realized that with my “feminine” hair I have gotten used to being validated by how men look at me with approval and women with jealousy, which is a pretty destructive pattern now that I've spotted it, because it feeds competition among women and contributes to the expectation that women ought to look a certain way. To use a term I found in a study of masculinity, I now stand here as a “gender traitor”, and that is a position I intend to utilize to stand as an example. With the loss of femininity I also felt like I had lost all of my “sex appeal”, but then I realized I would rather look huggable than fuckable – I'd rather come across as an approachable human being than an image in flesh loaded with symbols, meanings and assumptions.

I also realized that I have attached a whole myriad of words into different types of hair – beautiful, ugly, feminine, masculine, dumb, stupid, embarrassing, pretty, girly, cool – not realizing it is all just hair, dead cells growing from a certain area of my body onto which we have attached all kinds of cultural meanings and symbols that are not actually real. I will discharge these words from their positive and negative connotations so that hair would just be hair to me.

Most interesting about this has been, aside all this social stuff, how this has affected my self-image. As I have been unable to associate this form of hair, this shape that I've become, with anything positive, I've noticed my mind getting confused. All I associate this haircut with are clowns, my father and silly looking boys, and none of these is what I want to attach to my self-image! I want to be feminine and sexy and pretty! So my mind is in the search for a shape that would be “cool”, “pretty” or even comprehendible, because now every time I look into the mirror I kinda flinch, lol, because my hair looks so weird to me, more like a hat than hair. So every now and then I get this visualized image of myself, a shape or a shadow of a kind, that is an attempt to create a self-image. It has been interesting to see how much of myself I define based on how I look, especially around the head area, and how befuddled I get when this mechanism is interrupted. To avoid feeling like I've “lost myself” I've got to remind myself with breath that I am HERE, I am still me, no matter what kind of hair grows out of my head, I am the same underneath it.

[PS. I figured out what I look like: a troll puppet!]

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to doubt my decision to cut my hair and to try and get myself to not walk into the hair salon and to call it off by using excuses and manipulation strategies such as “long hair isn't that inconvenient”, “what if it never grows back?”, “you will never be as pretty as you are now!”, “what if people will dislike me?”.

• I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to try to “turn my head” by thinking “long hair isn't that inconvenient”, trying to get myself to act against what I've concluded to be the best choice from a practical viewpoint.
• I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to think “what if it never grows back?”, here implying that if it doesn't grow back my life is forever ruined because I have assigned hair a position where it defines my value and consequently affects the quality of my life, not realizing that hair is just hair and affects my life in no way whatsoever aside from practical issues – and also trying to manipulate myself into withdrawing from my decision with a scaring tactique.
• I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to think “you will never be as pretty as you are now!”, trying to scare and threaten myself into changing my decision with the belief that “feminine” hair is what makes me pretty and that “prettiness” overall has any value.
• I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to think “what if people will dislike me?”, trying to scare myself to change my decision with worst-case scenarios of social consequences – not realizing that if someone actually chooses to dislike me because of my hair, they aren't really looking at who I am but the image of who they thought/believed/perceived me to be.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to create and build up expectations and images in my mind about what my hair will look like when it's cut to a certain length, not realizing that as I have never had my hair this short I cannot possibly know what it will look like and how the curls will adjust to the change, also not realizing that with these expectations I hinder myself from accepting whatever the end result will be.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to react to the end result by thinking “it's not how I imagined it to be”, not taking into consideration the practical fact that in my imagination my hair was cut even shorter and that in this length what I imagined is not possible.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to make it harder for myself to accept my new haircut as I have held onto ideal images of how it “should” be.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to react to the association I had to my father and how my hair kind of looks similar to his, resisting looking like my father because that means “loss of femininity” and “loss of youth” to me.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to react to the association I had to some memories of teenage boys with afro's / bushy curly hair, resisting looking similar to these boys because to me that means “loss of femininity” and “loss of sex appeal”.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to fear that my hair won't curl up as it's “supposed to” and that it will remain somewhat straight, here reacting to the loss of my curls which I have defined an essential part of my self-image.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to my curls, believing and perceiving that if I lost my curls I would no longer be “me” - not realizing that this “me” is only the self-image of me but not who I am in fact.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to want my hair to curl up because that would mean there is a chance that my hair won't remain “ugly” and might turn “pretty”.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to attach certain kinds of hair to negative associations within and as the following words: “ugly”, “embarrassing”, “dumb”, “short”, “boy hair”, “man hair”, “masculine”, “stupid”, “ruined”, “trashy” (also in finnish: “nolo”, “tyhmä”, “pölö”, “ruma”, “miehekäs”, “kynitty”, “homssuinen”, “poikatukka”, “miesten kampaus”, “dorka”).

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to attach certain kinds of hair to positive associations within and as the following words: “pretty”, “nice”, “beautiful”, “attractive”, “feminine”, “girly”, “cool”, “curly”, “flowing”, “thick”, “cute” (in finnish: “nätti”, “kaunis”, “söpö”, “kiva”, “tyttömäinen”, “naisellinen”, “kihara”, “paksu”, “enkelinkihara”, “pukeva”, “ihana”).

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to assign certain forms and shapes of hair specific values which I have used to define myself and others.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to what kind of hair I've got through the words and values I associate with it, creating all of my personalities and characters based on the self-image I have built upon my hair.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to define others according to the hair they've got through the words and values I associate with it, creating assumptions and expectations of others based on who they instantly appear to be instead of taking the time to get to know a person to see who they actually are.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to require to build myself a self-image based on what I look like especially around the head area (face, head shape, hair, shoulders) and to get confused when what I looked like did not fit into any category of what I wanted to look like.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to want to look like certain ideals and to fear looking like certain worst-case scenarios – not realizing that what I look like bears no value to myself in fact, and that I will be here all the same no matter what the visual aspect of my hair is.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to give value to the visual aspect of my hair and thus validate the cultural construct of evaluating people according to their hair.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what matters to me in fact is how my hair feels and not how it looks like (unless I'm playing the game of “getting approval within society to reach a goal” which I am not at the moment).

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to overlook the fact that this short hair feels really nice and comfortable because I have given more value to others' experience of me than my experience of myself.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will react negatively to me because of my hair with judgement, rejection, ignoring, mocking, belittling and name-calling.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will only see who they perceive, believe and assume me to be – not realizing that even if this was to happen, it would simply mean that these people I would no longer interact with and that it would not change who I actually am.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to fear the judgement of others because I have been insecure of myself and used the perceived judgement of others as a way to judge myself.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to expect that others will judge me because I already judge myself, and to interpret the behavior of others according to my negative expectations, not realizing that I do not know what the experience of another actually is.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to want and expect validation of my worth in terms of “sex appeal” / “attractiveness” from men as “signs” of appreciation and from women as “signs” of jealousy.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to want to win in the competition among women to be “most attractive” to gain the alpha-position of the dominant female where I would stand as a “winner” and all other women as “losers” in terms of alluring men, finding a partner and continuing one's lineage.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to base my sense of self-worth on this validation I have searched from how men and women react to me and interact with me.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to define my self-worth according to my “level of attractiveness” I have gathered by reading “signs” from the behavior of others.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to “make it” in the competition for a suitable partner I need to look a certain way to get as much positive attention as possible, here believing that the quantity of positive attention assures my “victory”, not realizing that I ought to rather be looking at the quality if what I'm looking for is “suitability”.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to feel like my femininity is “lessened” because of how my hair looks.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to feel like I had lost my “sex appeal” with my hair, believing and perceiving that attractiveness is determined by how I look instead of who I am, and also giving value to the quality “sex appeal” because I fear not attracting a partner and being left alone.

I forgive myself that I've accepted and allowed myself to not see my hair as what it is – dead cells of physical matter the purpose of which is to keep my head warm and comfortable – and to instead perceive my hair to be “more” than just hair by attaching cultural and social symbols, meanings and values to it, not realizing the extent to which these imagined values affect my behavior, application and overall life experience.

I commit myself to embrace my hair as it is within and as the realization that it is just physical matter and NOT who I am, and that it can be re-grown and re-shaped for as long as it still grows, and that when/if it stops growing it is OK because that is how the physical body functions.

I commit myself to consider practicality along with self-expression when and as I make decisions to re-shape my hair, but to also be clear on “self-expression” to not include hidden desires, expectations and self-definitions.

I commit myself to accept my hair as a part of my physical body no matter what it looks like by focusing on how my hair feels like as a touch sensation.

I commit myself to walk myself out of the dependency for external factors to determine myself for me with writing, self-forgiveness and practical application.

I commit myself to take note of the moments where I judge/evaluate/assess another based on how his/her hair looks and to open up these moments either in spoken or written self-forgiveness.

I commit myself to allow myself to enjoy my hair (as well as the rest of my physical body) by focusing on how I experience myself instead of focusing on how others appear to experience me.

Day 187: Who am I

27032013

I used to take pictures of myself (more specifically my face) all the time. This is a habit that began in my late teens, around the age 16 or so, when I got into photography. I would take tens of pictures of myself in different lightings, surroundings, accessories, clothing, hairdo's etc. in order to find a “perfect shot” where I would look good in whatever way I desired. Sometimes I've wanted to look depressed and beaten, sometimes happy and sunny, sometimes cool and distant, sometimes powerful, sometimes sweet – whatever image I have wanted to paint of myself.

I realize I have done this as a way of reinforcing my self-image. I have picked whatever character I have wanted to live as and taken pictures to convince myself and others I am in fact like the character. I have lived majorly through images by shaping my self-image in my mind according to how my face looks (in pictures, mirrors etc), in both good and bad.

About a year ago I stopped taking pictures of myself. I would still enjoy looking at pictures others had taken of me and choosing which ones to share; all the while I browse images of myself I am completely blind to anything but the question “how do I look”.

So today I picked up my camera and took some pictures of myself for the first time in a year. This was an experiment I had not planned to see what happens. I first noticed that I didn't really know how to pose anymore, and when I tried to the images looked stiff and faked. I guess one has to believe in it for it to look convincing, lol.

The second thing I noticed while looking at some of the first pictures I took was that I looked really tired in the pictures even though I didn't feel like it (I may have been though as I'd had a long day up until then).

Then I took a picture that for once didn't look faked – and I didn't recognize myself from it. I looked at the picture of my face and I thought: “Is this what I look like? Is this me?” Of course lighting and stuff can do a lot to alter the resulting photo, but nevertheless what I realized in that moment was that I had become disconnected from the self-perception that used to define me according to images because ever since the last time I have used specific images to define me I have changed a lot – and it's not just that my hair has gotten longer.

But when I looked at it practically, I had to admit that no matter how distant that image felt to me, it was in fact a snapshot of who I was in that heartbeat – and that if I felt disconnected from the image I was seeing, I was also disconnected from my very self.

And then I realized this links to another subject I have been thinking about today, which is self-suppression.

Lately I have noticed myself suppressing myself a lot. It may be that I have had a “down period” where my practical application is slackier than usual, or it may be that I am becoming more aware of the moments where I have suppressed myself all along. Either way, I've had a wake-up call of sorts. For some days now I have focused so much on writing about shit that isn't here to be practically dealt with that I have ignored the practical application of my process – the movement and the change in which self-forgiveness is a supportive tool but not the purpose itself.

I've had trouble dealing with this self-suppression thing because I haven't known where to begin as it seems to spread out on every fucking interaction (or maybe I've just happened to be in touch with those people that I have difficulties with). I was looking for a trigger or a starting point I could locate before I go head-first into doubt and suppression instead of just acting upon my initial impulse, and all I could find was the physical feeling I get in my body when and as I suppress my self-expression.

But as I was thinking about this self-image thing and a discussion I had today, I realized that I really don't know who I am. I keep telling myself to “stand within myself as myself” and all these grand things without ever stopping to look and see who it is that I really am. Self-confidence is to be myself; self-trust is to be myself; truly standing on my own two feet is to know myself and fully rely on myself. So how can I expect myself to not suppress myself around everyone when I have no idea who I am? How am I to not fear what others think of me when I don't know what to think about myself?

This is not about defining myself according to some characteristics or about painting a picture – it's about knowing who I am within this mess of myself and where I stand within that mess – what are my capabilities and incapabilities – what are the challenges I face – and what principles do I live according to; how and where to do I direct myself? It's about facing myself in good and bad and taking action on all of it.

So I will now begin mapping out who I am at this moment, at this point of time, to be able to stand more clear within myself, and through this I will move onto opening up the point of self-suppression in more detail. I have been somewhat lousy in doing planned writings, but this time I'm trying this simply by setting a guideline but not planning too much in detail what to write about – I mean, “who I am” is quite the vast question and can be approached in many ways, lol. So let's see what comes out of this.

Days 153-155: I want to be an actor - part 1

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2010

Every now and then these days when I act in theatre (acting here meaning the work of an actor as movement, speech, song, dance, voice, interaction, and other kinds of expressive physical and emotional things) I return to that feeling where I desire to act professionally. This usually occurs either when I am enjoying myself especially much when acting, or when I step outside of myself to observe my doings through the eyes of an outsider and see myself to be “good” at what I'm doing: fluent, certain, creative, flexible.

Now, I have made a decision to not apply for theatre schools for the time being and instead approach life and work through a profession that would concretely and directly affect the world we live in, not just inspire others to do that for me. This decision falters every time this longing to be a professional actor arises, and it means I have not made this decision from a clear starting point. It's time to go through this now as I am applying to university and all this wavering will influence my motivation and ability to study for the entrance exams.

It is commonly known and said in the theatre field that to be an actor one has to be both an exhibitionist and an egoist – in other words, everyone wanting to be actor is already both to some extent. I will begin by going through these points.

Exhibitionism - “come watch me express myself!”

This is a point I realized some time ago when I got disappointed again when some friend or a family member didn't come see a play I was acting in. I realized that whenever I ask for a person to come see me on stage I am asking them to come and see me express myself freely because I don't do that off-stage, and that therefore this is a “rare occasion” to see me express myself a certain way. This indicates both my unwillingness and disability to freely express myself in all situations in all possible ways and shows the extent to which I have defined the stage to be a “special place” for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to in my wish to show myself as I really am in the full scope of human expression to create a “special place” where I could do that within an illusion of safety instead of just living as self-expression unconditionally no matter where I am and who I'm with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child when I limited my self-expression due to bullying to define the stage of our theatre into a “safe place” because there I was able to push through my resistances (to a certain extent*), misinterpreting this to mean I could only express myself on stage – not realizing I was the one accepting and allowing myself to push through and show myself - not “the magic” of the stage, the group, the director or the situation – because in fact I am the one who moved myself.

* There are taboos in theatre as well – ways of expressing oneself that are/were prohibited.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to do theatre to express myself in the full scope of human expression because there are no ways to do that in “real life” that would be socially acceptable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that that which is “socially acceptable” is based on a social agreement which I have not been there to create even though I have upheld it with my own actions, and that because this is an agreement I do not agree with there is in fact no agreement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a social agreement ceases to exist in my part when I stop participating in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear stopping participation in social agreements that prohibit expressing myself in the full scope of human expression because I have been afraid of judgement, isolation and misunderstandings / conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will judge who I am as who I am living as at the moment as manifested in my self-expression, not realizing that the judgement of others only has effect on me when I turn it into self-judgement, which is something I have full directive power over, and that to fear my self-judgement is thus to state that I am unable to direct myself – which is not true, as I have shown myself that I am in fact able to stop, face, re-direct and move myself to change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will isolate me and deny me access to life's resources if I stop my participation in the social agreements that prohibit my self-expression (and that of others) because this is a world/reality/society that functions on relationships where everyone is dependent on each other and in which, if one is left to survive by oneself, it is impossible to survive in without others.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will be denied access to life's resources (relationships, work, food, housing) because that would mean I would not survive, in other words, I would die because someone reacted to who I was and believed their reaction – not realizing that if for some reason I'd have to choose between self-compromise and death, which we all face eventually anyway, the choice would be self-expression as well – I'd die honest or live a lie.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will misunderstand me if I choose to not participate in the social agreements that limit our self-expression and that this will lead to conflict, not realizing that in between my expression, the other's choice to misunderstand and a resulting conflict is an infinite number of moments where the situation can be faced, addressed, directed and lived into a solution.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to “handle” solving misunderstandings or conflict as I have not realized that a misunderstanding/conflict can be solved simply by clearing my starting point (how did I cause this situation?) and then approaching with straightforward communication.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wish for others to come see me as I am on stage, thinking “I wish someone would see the real me”, not realizing I am abdicating my responsibility to live as the real me and instead I'm dumping the responsibility on others to go through extra effort to see me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is others' responsibility to dig out my “real self” when in fact only I can reveal myself, as even when another “digs me out” I am the one who accepts and allows myself to reveal myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not show myself as I have held on to the excuse/justification that if I expose myself I make myself vulnerable to attacks, not realizing that as I stand fully within and as myself uncompromised there are no attacks that could “catch me off guard” as I am fully aware of everything I live as – and that if an attack does catch me “off guard” it is a welcome reminder of a point I have not faced and should thus not be feared but embraced.

Egoism – expecting praise and attention

In theatre it's all about ME in the spotlight, ME being talented, ME shining, ME being better than anyone else. I secretly expect praise and special attention because at some point of my acting years others started to give me feedback that stated I was somehow “exceptional”, and I totally bought into this as a child/teenager wallowing in self-diminishment. Someone wants to elevate me? Bring it on!

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to show off myself in theatre at the expense of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to be “the best one” as compared to other actors, in other words, to “win” over everyone else and thus validate my self-worth, as I believed that my skill/talent and admirability are the measure of my worth and the ones watching me (in this case the audience) the measurers and judges.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to misinterpret the encouragement and feedback I received in theatre by filtering it through my fears and desires and using it to enhance my fears and desires even further as the stakes grew as I exposed myself more and more.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the positive feedback I received in theatre to create a self-image where I was “good at something”, believing I was dependent on that trait to receive acceptance / positive attention from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be “good at acting” because it would validate my self-image.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will fail at acting because that would destroy my self-image.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child, when I was depressed and thought I am not good enough in anything, to hold on to practicing the skills/talents that I received positive feedback / attention from (singing and acting) because in terms of “being loved” they were most rewarding.*

*Not the only reason I kept doing these as I also enjoyed the act of expression itself, but a secret one that lay underneath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to react positively to my performance on stage because this is what has usually happened and I have built a self-image based on it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to give me positive attention when they have seen me perform on stage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to show admiration when they have seen me perform on stage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to give me positive comments, remarks, notes and feedback regarding my performance on stage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react when another gives me critique about my performance on stage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react and take a defensive stance when another gives me constructive feedback about what was actually here, and to cover up my defensiveness by adopting the character that “receives critique well”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when another shows me their appreciation for what I did on stage, they are expressing their experience of what happened, which is usually loaded with emotions and feelings, and that if their feedback concerns this subjective experience of theirs it is nothing I can take credit for. [For example, if another says “I was so moved by X”, it is not a statement that the action X was in fact “moving” but that the person experienced it as such.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when I receive positive/negative feedback from the audience, not realizing their feedback mostly reflects their personal experience of what they saw.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am “the kind of person” who is able to take critique when in fact I have reacted, defended and pretended every time this has happened.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear and try to defend myself from critique because it poses a threat to my self-image.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take critique personally, not realizing that at least some of it is an expression of how this person experienced what he/she saw, which is nothing I can take credit for – and that if another gives me constructive feedback on what I do and how to refine my skills it is something to embrace and welcome and test out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to critique which I have perceived to have been said out of jealousy, spite and bitterness, thinking “they're saying this to bully me”, not realizing that I am reacting because I see myself to be inferior to the other and then blaming the other for my experience - “I feel bad because you are jealous/spiteful/bitter” - abdicating my responsibility over my own experience of inferiority in the setting of bullying.

I will continue with more thought dimensions in the next part.