Days 408-409: The healing process is to learn from mistakes

This post is a continuation to:

Day 407 - Being ill




18082014

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think about the disease in a dramatic way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use dramatic words, tones and phrasing when describing the symptoms and/or consequences of the disease, such as saying the virus will remain in my body “for the rest of my life” or exaggerating the pain or discomfort I have been in and the length and magnitude of the symptoms.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of having the disease as a dramatic story, where I have been the victim of unfair adversity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by thinking and speaking of the disease in dramatic terms I assign myself a role / a position where I am “the victim” and thus justify not carrying responsibility for the disease.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive I am helpless to prevent disease and/or to direct my healing process when I am ill, not realizing that as everything in this reality is connected, nothing that occurs in my body is a coincidence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that thinking about the disease in dramatic terms triggered a feeling of despair in me, one that continued into depression and anxiety, and that I created these feelings by separating myself from what is HERE and what can be done about it.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect the disease to pass in a few days as I assumed it to be a normal flu, not realizing that the long-term symptoms would have pointed to another direction had I examined them more carefully.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist looking at the long-term symptoms (prolonged muscle pains, fatigue, swollen face) as I have been afraid of having an uncommon illness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid looking at and evaluating my symptoms because I have been afraid of what I might find: an illness as the consequence of how I have lived my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with frustration and fear when and as my expectations were not fulfilled as the disease continued longer than expected.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that other people will get tired of taking care of me and abandon me as I am no longer “useful” (entertaining, engaging, stimulating) to others but instead become “useless” (unfulfilling, boring, burdensome).

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my partner will get tired of the relationship being “on hold” while I am physically incapacitated from any form of interaction and that he will leave me as a result.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when the disease continued as I became afraid of being abandoned.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to heal as fast as possible to avoid abandonment.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing my friends because of prolonged sickness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “missing out on life” while I am sick, with this referring mainly to social events I have been unable to attend while sick, not realizing that I am not missing out on life in fact, as LIFE is here even when I am am sick – sickness is life, too – but that I am “missing out” on “fun”: experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness are dependent on specific social conditions and cannot be experienced while sick and alone.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to confuse the experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness with stability, believing and perceiving that the positive emotional experiences can provide a stable focal point to my life, not realizing that the nature of experiences is inherently unstable and fickle, as no emotion/feeling can be made to last forever or to remain the same; Thus, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that reliable stability can only be found outside energetic and emotional experiences.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about “missing out” on positive experiences (and fear facing negative experiences) as I have believed them to be “the fuel” I would need to live on.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to physical disability, as I have been afraid that I would be somehow disabled for the rest of my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making mistakes that can't be amended, not realizing that in the end there are very few mistakes the consequences of which couldn't be directed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making a mistake that will permanently disable my physical body in some way, not realizing that this fear is a sign of my mistrust towards myself – of the fact that I know I am not living as self-honestly as I could and that it can bite me in the ass some day.

--

But hang on. What if this is the greatest fallacy of all?

One of my clearest personality traits (or issues) is perfectionism: trying to do things as well and flawlessly as possible, because I see no point in aiming any lower. The whole low self-esteem thing with “I'm not good enough” popping up everywhere is tied to this survival mechanism, where I kind of try to compensate for myself with my actions – myself, which I perceive to be very small, insignificant and insufficient. Most of the people closest to me, and even those that are not that close, have picked up on this, although not many discuss it directly.

Because the people in my life have helped me become aware of this personality trait learned somewhere way early in my childhood, I have become more careful about walking this process. I fear that I am looking for “fault” in myself where there is none, because there IS an actual risk for me misrepresenting myself to myself, and often people respond to my attempts to develop myself by dismissing my attempts to carrry self-responsibility with “you don't have to be perfect”. I know this is probably in most cases a defense mechanism, but I'm still doubtful. What if I am doing myself harm by trying to be “perfect”?

But I am not aiming to be perfect. I am engaging in a process to become the best possible version of myself: considering the circumstances I have been born and raised in and the possibilities I have now as the outcome; the time I have left; the skills I have and the skills I am still able and willing to learn; the support I have available in my environment. I by no means expect myself to ever be “ready” or “done” with this process, I do not expect myself to learn everything there is, I do not expect myself succeed flawlessly in any of my attempts. What I do expect of myself, however, is patience, perseverance, consistency, self-management (I prefer this to “self-discipline”) and absolute self-honesty – at least eventually, as the cycles of self-deceit sometimes can't be unraveled right away. Can this be called perfectionism? I'd rather call it integrity or self-respect. Why would I disgrace myself by not showing myself respect?

Also, I do not see the process as linear, where I'd have a single outcome to reach for. I do not see myself lying on my deathbed and thinking “this is who I became!”, lol, and waiting for judgement. What I refer to with the “best possible version” of myself may be different in different points of time and space – it is simply the potential that I would be able to live out, and this can and will vary as I change and my environment changes.

So, when writing the last self-forgiveness statement above, I wrote the words “I'm not living as self-honestly as I could” and I saw self-judgement.

--

27082014

I commit myself to show myself that most mistakes can be amended by redirecting oneself and managing the consequences of a mistake, just like an illness heals once the cause is addressed and dealt with and the symptoms alleviated.

Thus, I commit myself to live out the commitment above by following this self-corrective statement:

When and as I consider myself having made a mistake - by for example thinking about having made a mistake, blaming myself for having made a mistake or feeling bad for making a mistake – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that a mistake is also a chance to learn and develop, and that a mistake is not a negative (nor a positive) thing. I take care to not believe my self-judgement, I look at the cause of my mistake and I forgive myself for it. I look at the consequences of my mistake and I ask what could be done to reduce their impact. I take action to make amends for the consequences of my mistake and to redirect myself in a way that will prevent the same mistake from happening again. I remind myself that a learning process is a series of mistakes and that mistakes are inevitable if one wants to learn.



The next time I get ill, I commit myself to focus primarily on resting and self-care to support myself with my immediate circumstances and secondarily on piecing together a picture of what events and actions led to the disease in order to support me in my long-term process.

The next time I get ill, I commit myself to face the illness as LIFE, not as something that separates me from life.

Day 407: Being ill

17082014

I have now been sick for 14 days, of which I have had a fever during the last 11 days. The disease was identified as mononucleosis or “kissing disease” (a nickname derived from the fact that the virus only transmits through direct contact with another's saliva). The symptoms include high fever, muscle pains, swollen lymph nodes, swollen face, sore throat, stomach cramps and an overall fatigue that in the most extreme cases can go on up to months or even years. Once infected, the virus will remain in my body for the rest of my life.

The first few days with the muscle cramps were heavy, because I thought I was dealing with the usual kind of pain that comes as the result of having a bad posture or not exercising enough, and then got frustrated when the pains were just getting worse despite my attempts to support my muscles in healing. When the fever struck on day 4, I was overwhelmed by how “everything” can happen at once, as I still thought that all of my slowly-occurring symptoms were unrelated to each other. By Sunday the fever was reaching 40 degrees celsius, I felt like I was going to die and I was so unbelievably frustrated, as I had “been a good girl” and given myself rest - despite the fact that I wouldn't have wanted to - because I just wanted to heal as fast as possible so I could get on with my life. I didn't know why the fever was going up, I didn't understand any of my symptoms and I was getting depressed and anxious and thus cried a lot and tried to write during those few hours of the day I was awake. I felt cut out and separated from the world, a prisoner in my own home. I didn't sleep for many nights because I was too restless to empty my mind, and all the entertainment I had consumed to “keep myself busy” while hurrying up healing attacked me mentally during the nights.

On day 9 I got the diagnosis and my anxiety dropped, as I now knew I wasn't dealing with a normal flu and that I had done nothing “wrong” to not be healed already. With the knowledge of what was happening in my body I could give myself the peace of mind to rest and the time needed for the body to go through the process of adapting to the presence of the virus - I mean, my body's gonna have to deal with it for as long as I live! The fever lowered a bit and I started having energy to be awake and do something light, but as these kinds of days have now been rolling by, I've increasingly felt how everything that I am doing or thinking of myself possibly doing is somehow useless, a pastime, as if I was just killing time – and when I pointed out to myself that I am now simply on sick leave and that it is OK to not push myself too much, I asked myself: if I wasn't sick and didn't have all these constraints, what would I be doing now? And the response I got from myself was just as unfulfilling and depressing as all the thoughts I'd had before. I felt that everything I would be doing during these last few weeks of my summer holidays would be “killing time”, constructing sandcastles only to let them be blown away, and besides that, I'd be doing it alone or with people I didn't like or with not enough of a variety of people.

I'm a university student with a 3-month-long summer holiday, and for many reasons I decided not to plan anything special for this summer. I'd stay here in my hometown, working as much as I could (which turned out not to be much) and just give myself space and time to focus on myself and whatever personal projects I wanted to give my attention to. My semester begins on the second week of September, and until then I still don't have many plans.

So, where has my focus been during this summer? I have had a new relationship I have invested quite a lot of time in. I have traveled a bit, gone to some festivals, prepared for and celebrated my sister's wedding and experimented with having cats. I've read some books (not as much as I planned to) and played some piano (way less than I intended to). Basically, I don't think I've had a moment where I've had to wonder about what to do next, because the opportunities have been presented to me – one could even say I've been a bit busy, lol.

So I'm guessing a partial cause of this unfulfillment experience is the fact that I am now for the first time actually facing what my summer would have been like in some scenarios: if I had to spend it alone (as I am now doing in isolation) and without going anywhere (as I can't now take up anyone's invitations). I am in shock of this leisure, especially because I cannot do anything physical yet, which is probably what I would be using a lot of my free time for. I don't find fulfillment in studying when I can't balance it out by going for a run. I don't find satisfaction in making music when I can't shake it off with yoga. I have figured that I am a very kinaesthetic person (not saying that everyone isn't or couldn't be), and not being able to move has been tiresome for me. I've felt as if many of my preferred channels of self-expression have been cut off, as I haven't been able to dance or sing or even fucking walk properly.

So, the reason I'm writing all this is to try and make sense of the experience of unfulfillment, resistance, loneliness and dissatisfaction that has been triggered during this illness. It's been a tough 2 weeks for my psyche, as during this time many points concerning my new relationship, proactiveness and in general just living a life have surfaced.

I'm also curious about the infection itself. It may be quite telling that I got a “kissing disease” while coming down from the rush of endorphins of embracing and establishing a new relationship – I could say I've been quite easy pray, lol, with my guard way down. I don't know where I got the infection, but because it only transmits via saliva, a good guess would be my new partner. There are some things that have been straining the relationship as the premise of it was left a bit unclear, and I'm kinda thinking how this is now the “payment” for my carelessness, as I did see the things we slid under the carpet and chose to ignore it. “This is what you get for constructing a relationship in this manner.” In a way I'm not surprised at all.

Ok. There's a lot to process here, so I will continue tomorrow by going through what I wrote today and writing specific self-forgiveness on what I find.

Day 257: Exploring physical discomfort - wetness

16062013

Today I have been walking further the point of physical discomfort which I started opening up in yesterday's post. It has been pouring down rain all day, and because I didn't want to spend the entire day indoors I decided to face the rough weather and went out. I got soaked in the rain quite fast and I made a decision to support myself in these conditions by buying myself a pair of gumboots – god darnit did I love myself for this decision, lol, because the boots just brought me so much comfort and protection. I really don't want to get sick while I travel, so this was a good move in that sense.

As I was walking down towards the harbor I started to realize that I am just not going to stay dry in any way in this weather, and that I could just let go of even attempting to do so and say “screw it! bring it on!” and embrace the weather for what it was. I have a dry (yet filthy) hostel to return to, so I will not die even if I let myself get wet right now. And so I stopped to breathe for a while and realized how much I enjoy the feeling of raindrops pummeling my face, water flowing down from my forehead through my eyelashes to my cheeks, water everywhere, in my eyes and mouth, dripping down, caressing. The texture of wet cloth is still something I do not really enjoy (but a sensation I could explore), but man, water on skin feels awesome, and while walking around trying to protect myself from it I ignored it completely.

When I had stopped to embrace the sensation of rain, I also realized that the wind was huge and strong and that I would actually enjoy just standing within the wind – and that it wasn't that cold at all, it was a warm wind that would not make me sick. So because of a fear of going beyond my comfort zone I was about to ignore all the small pleasantries within my circumstances.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the sensation of wet cloth on my skin because I find it uncomfortable and have defined it a sign of conditions that will make me physically sick.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear and resent the sensation of wet shoes on my feet because I have defined it a sign of conditions that will make me physically sick and thus find it uncomfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop and actually feel the water flowing on my feet and in-between my toes to realize that the sensation itself is not uncomfortable but the associations I get from it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my shoes getting soaked by thinking “fuck!” as I was attempting to keep my feet dry despite the weather conditions in which it was impossible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I went out, to not consider the weather conditions realistically in order to see that I would not be able to avoid getting my feet wet and instead hold onto the belief that if I try really hard I would be able to avoid this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get disappointed when I got my feet wet because I had kept up an irrational wish of not getting my feet wet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and keep myself dry with measures that weren't enough to do that and then feel uncomfortable and fearful when my measures failed me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and escape the weather conditions instead of embracing them because I had defined them as something that needs to be avoided or else I'll get sick.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by following my definitions of things instead of stopping to see and experience what things are actually like I miss out on life itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my definitions of things are not the equivalent of the actual reality of things, and that to believe my definitions over actually exploring the world is to live in a self-created fantasy world and to confine myself into my comfort zone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the weather conditions I have defined to be “uncomfortable”, “impractical” and “dangerous” and to not consider the situation and circumstances at hand to see what's actually going on – for example, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that the weather is warm enough to not make the rainy conditions dangerous for my health, and that because I have a living space to return to any time I want I am not at the mercy of the weather conditions, and that because of these facts the weather is not dangerous – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that the weather here is impractical because the rain makes me wet which I experience to be uncomfortable, not realizing that my experience of discomfort is not necessary by any measure. Thus, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to deny myself the enjoyable experience of being within these extreme weather conditions with my fears and imagination.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent the sensation of wet cloth against my skin, not realizing that wet cloth is just water and fibre, both textures that I recognize, and that it is not these textures that I am escaping but my own skin.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid putting myself in circumstances in which the sensations of my body are beyond my current comfort zone by always keeping myself within circumstances where my bodily sensations are “comfortable” - not realizing that while I do this I limit myself extensively as I deny a whole world of possibilities simply because of how my body would feel.

When and as I feel discomfort while wearing wet clothing, I stop, I breathe and I bring my awareness to all of my body, back and front, right and left, up and down, focusing on my toes and fingers. I explore the sensations in my body as caused by the wet cloth/material. After this I make an assessment of the conditions I am in to see whether it is advisable to do something about it or if it is possible to stay and embrace the situation to push the borders of my comfort zone further through practice and exposement.

I commit myself to live out self-care by wearing my gumboots in wet conditions to ensure myself physical wellbeing through avoiding conditions that would get me sick as I see, realize and understand through practical trial and error that wet feet get a person sick faster than any other body part.

I commit myself to embrace the weather I am in and to through this become aware of the definitions I have assigned to different weather conditions in order to investigate whether these definitions are in accordance to actual reality or not.

I commit myself to stop separating myself from the physical reality I live in by investigating the definitions I have assigned to different aspects of nature, weather and the touch sensation.

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 212: Too stressed to lay myself down

22042013

Today I faced an odd experience that consisted of intense physical pain, exhaustion, anxiety and possession-like restlessness. I tried to write throughout the experience and it helped me keep a track of what was going on. The experience that had been here all day finally faded when I had taken a two-hour nap and done the following self-forgiveness:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not have a break when my physical indicates I need it with obvious weariness, sleepiness, heaviness, fatigue, pain and tension.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe and thus forget my physical when my physical is sick and instead try and find the reason for my sickness from the mind through reasoning and logic.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not gift myself with rest when and as my physical body is sick and indicates it has not yet fully recovered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself enough time for rest when recovering from a physical sickness and instead push myself to work before, during and after the most intense period of sickness, not realizing that by doing this I only prolong the sickness and disable myself from healing effectively and wholly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the fact that I become sick in the first place is a sign of a malfunction in the body, which in this case has come about because of neglecting myself, and that this sickness will continue for as long as it takes for me to sort out this point of self-abuse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is to “rest” when I play video games, watch TV series and eat plenty of treats, not realizing that this doesn't actually serve the well-being of my physical but only entertains my mind.

I commit myself to try out how it would affect my recovery if I replaced TV and video games with reading and eating treats with drinking lots of water / herbs and moderately eating healthier stuff, such as vegetable food, fruits, unsweetened yoghurt, oats and rice.

I commit myself to experiment how it would affect my healing process if I shut down all electronic equipment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse myself with stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create resistance to work by stressing about my work, not realizing that I make it more difficult for myself to work when I stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will not make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that “I will screw it up”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be left with no financial support platform and that I will have caused it with my own stupidity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I have caused myself to become dependent on the financial support of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I am making a mistake.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself through the eyes of others as “stupid”, “dumb”, “irresponsible”, “childish”, “self-centered” and “ignorant”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my decisions and to not assess my doubts from a practical viewpoint.

[These fears I'll continue with in more specificity. Cool that they're beginning to open up.]

I was then able to continue with my studies and I had some fresh air, did a little yoga and now I feel immensely better. The possession has faded and I've returned myself to stability. I now continue with the following SF:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance to take naps even when my body clearly states it to be necessary because I have defined that “naps aren't for me”, thus enforcing a relationship of refusal and separation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that sometimes the body does require more sleep – in this case due to self-imposed stress and fatigue – and that then the rest must be given, even if it's in the middle of my day, or the consequences will be even worse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a self-image where I am “more” because I sleep as little as possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “sleeping a lot” to be “lazy”, “escapist”, “self-centered”, “unambitious” and “limp”, thus creating a resistance through all these negatively charged definitions to not “sleep a lot”, whatever I may define “a lot” to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “sleeping a lot / too much” to be when one sleeps more than 6 hours or sleeps during the day, as I have not realized that sleeping more than 6 hours and/or sleeping during the day may sometimes in fact be necessary.

I commit myself to give myself sleep/rest when my body indicates it to be necessary, not trying to multitask during the rest by reading, writing etc. while I lay myself down, but by putting everything I am doing off of my hands and allowing myself to stop and fully exist within the time that I dedicate for resting.

What eventually got me through the painful experience was self-forgiveness followed with physically moving myself out of the jammed situation. I wrote, I got up and I went out, and when I returned I changed my physical position within my apartment, which worked out awesomely. Remembering to breathe was also quite helpful!