Day 348: Shooting the messenger

08-09112013

A few days ago I faced a situation where criticism and blame was directed towards me. I realized that the person criticizing me (and others) was reacting to her interpretation of the situation, and so I didn't take it personally. I kept myself in breath and let her express her frustration. The situation ended with her dismissing her own reaction by saying “this is just who I am, I can't help it” and that she realizes that there is nothing actually wrong with the situation at hand.

Because of her own attitude it would be easy for me to just say “yup, that's how it is” - to pass all the responsibility for another's reaction onto the other and dismiss whatever was going on. But I know that a part of what she is picking up from me and reacting to is actually there, although very slightly and well-hidden. What I found here is a pattern where “I don't have to listen” if the one delivering the message is reacting emotionally – when in fact the message might be true even though it's being delivered from an unclear starting point.

I did a lot of specific self-forgiveness on this, but because it includes other people and I couldn't really "mask" it into a neutral form, I am going to not publish some of it. However, I will share some of the key points.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order for me to participate in an activity there would have to be a goal and that if there isn't a goal I don't “have to” participate – not realizing that the goals are created within and through the activity itself during those times when there isn't a specific goal, and that me joining in only when there is a specific goal is to pass the responsibility for creating a goal completely onto the others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not participating in the goal creation, not realizing that I have simply made a choice to channel my attention onto things that are more certain to have a concrete outcome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel frustrated with a hobby that is “going nowhere”, not realizing that I have not really contributed to “taking it somewhere”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waste my time by participating in an activity “half-heartedly” - riding along but not contributing to creation and direction – not realizing that I would be better off either doing it with a full participation or not doing it at all and rather focusing on something else.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to arrange my life I need to make choices, and that sometimes those choices exclude one thing and include another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for choosing to not focus on [activity], not realizing that I have made this choice based on what I find relevant in life at the moment – a pretty solid decision - and that I am wavering from my decision through guilt because I fear that I will be judged for my decision by those who have chosen differently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear standing up for what I find essential in life as I have feared that others would take my stance personally and believe it to be judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge those who have prioritized their lives differently than I have mine, not realizing that people's life situations are very different, and that prioritizing [activity] might serve a relevant purpose in someone else's life (releasing energy, meeting friends, taking a break, getting exercise etc).

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the starting point of another as an excuse to not listen to what the person is saying.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a message from an unclear starting point – a dusty mirror – is just as much HERE than the same message from a clear starting point – a clean mirror – and that despite the source of the message I am able to “decode” it and thus reflect myself back to myself from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as a person reacts to me, to focus on their reaction – their “flaws” - instead of asking myself what it is they're picking up in me and reacting to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive others to be “flawed” to cover up for my own misgivings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the misgiving of another means that I have none.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to measure a situation based on each one's misgivings or “flaws” and to then dub each one as a “winner” or a “loser” (high or low status) based on the amount or severeness of one's flaws, not realizing that this “role play” directly affects my behavior and consequently the behavior of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to focus on the misgivings of another to move the focus away from my own misgivings, making the “flaws” of the other appear bigger than they are and making mine appear smaller than they are, not realizing that this is just a momentary illusion and that both of our “flaws” are in fact one and equal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a competition where, in order for me to not “lose”, somebody else has got to.

I commit myself to make a decision concerning my participation in this activity by the end of the year based on what contributing to this activity creates and upholds in this reality on the small as well as on the big scale: how it affects my life, how it affects the group members' lives, how it affects the group community, how it affects the town/area and how it affects the world – and at what expense.

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When and as another unmistakably reacts to me, be it a positive or a negative reaction, I commit myself to listen to what they're trying to express while also aware of their reactive state, asking myself “what is he/she reacting to” and searching myself for the trigger – NOT so that I would carry all the responsibility and blame myself for the reaction of another, but so that the responsibility for something equally created would be equally shared.

Day 311: Leadership - passing the power

09092013

I was at a theatre camp for the weekend and while there I temporarily took the position of the “leader”. I want to look at how this switch in position happened and who I was as a “leader”.

In our theatre hierarchy I am unofficially the “second in command” after our chairman. This meant that when she was not around, I would take the lead. I saw this happening through expectations I had towards myself and through expectations others had towards me as well. When she was gone and there was a situation that required direction, I felt everyone's eyes on me, I felt attention drawn towards me even though I did nothing to get it, I felt like it was my moment to do something, as if it was my responsibility to direct. (I am not sure how much of this I imagined and how much was real, and to know the exact facts is not even relevant.) It was a moment where I realized that I had a choice to either accept all the authority offered to me – or, as this would not be a choice that supports the best of all, to try and use that moment of attention in a different way.

I was careful to not run the whole “show” by myself, meaning that I would try to get people to carry responsibility themselves – that I would NOT make it too “easy” for them and do every bit of thinking and moving for them just to feel “important” and “needed” myself. What I did was give these slight pushes and pulls towards the right direction, and this worked out quite well: most of the people were actually doing their share of work, which was more than I had hoped for. I didn't need to stress about things getting done and watch over every bit of action because I trusted these people to take care of things and showed them that I did. So by expecting no less from them than the best they can be I supported them to live up to their potential.

What interests me is the moment of “passing the power”. Hierarchy is a man-made conceptual structure to ensure that power remains in “deserving” and “capable” hands – in other words, in the hands of those who agree on the principles and direction of that which is governed, which may or may not be a good thing. But power does not exist if it is not given by those who are ruled over. Why does this theatre group accept and allow me to have power and what can I do to support them to become self-governed? Why and how do I find my position of power justified?

The moment of “passing the power” (accepting and allowing one to direct others) is a moment of collective helplessness. What do we do now? Who knows? Where do we go? It is the helplessness of a child. If there is someone there with apparent “knowledge” - the defining factor of an “adult” - that's where the faces turn. You tell us what to do! You know where to go! And people refuse to think, to move, to use their own capacity to search for an answer. This is OK if people actually do not know what to do and have no way of figuring it out (or if the process of figuring it out would take impractically long), but I see that at least within this particular group there is a passivity, a laziness, a limpness where an authority would rather be followed than self be set in motion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my position in our theatre hierarchy as “second in command” is something I have “deserved”, something I “ought to” have, something that is “rightfully” mine as I have believed and perceived that I have “proven myself worthy” by being talented, hard-working and loyal – here defining myself (my ego) according to this high position in a hierarchy, seeing myself as something “more” than the ones “below” me in the hierarchy – not realizing that a hierarchy is a construct that only exists in the subjective conceptual realities of each individual – in our minds – and that if I define myself according to something that only exists in the mind I will end up believing I am that mind-image, when in fact I am a physical being in a physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I define myself according to imaginary power structures (statuses and titles) I will limit myself from fully realizing myself as a physical being and from living in this physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the only dimension of power structures that actually matters are their consequences in the matter – the “fruit” that they bear in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the only reason participating in a power structure might be justified is its practical consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in power structures to feed my ego as I have not stopped to consider the practical consequences of my participation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give my permission for others to be “leaders”, passing them the power, without stopping to realize that their position is given by those who follow, myself included.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blindly believe that some people are “meant to” be leaders while others are not, not realizing that the reason we have leaders at all is because most of the people do not know how to be self-directed and thus “require” someone to “show them the way”, and that the people who end up being leaders are those who are lucky enough to be (or at least appear to be) self-directed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my “leaders” by asking myself if they're actually showing a good example and if I should be following them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not “defy” my “leaders” by seeing and treating them as equals (= without fear).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear disagreeing with my “leaders” because that would have required me to direct myself from within myself for myself – in other words, without an example I could passively follow.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my “leaders” out of fear of losing that authority I could passively follow, not realizing that when I rise up to question my “leader” I no longer need a “leader” as I have become that which I am looking for in an authority figure: an active participant and creator of life.

I'll continue with this in posts to come.

Day 255: Student status

14062013

I just received information that I have been accepted into the university I applied to and took an entrance exam for. My reaction was of joy and relief and that of utter excitement. I am relieved because waiting for the results has built up anticipation within me and because this information now provides me a guideline for how I will begin to re-direct my life, which is something I have had to put off for a while. I am happy because getting into a university provides me with opportunities I have not had before and which I am eager to utilize.

However, in addition to all this I noticed that I started to build a new personality based on this new status of mine. It was an experience that said: “Finally I am someone!” or: “I am on my way to become someone!” or rather: “Finally I have proven myself worthy to have access to the resources that allow me to become someone! The great authorities have accepted me! Ha ha!” Lol, and this is of course ridiculous, because I define myself “more than” those who are not receiving a higher level education, and I give my acceptance for this education system that does not allow everyone with interest to study as much as they want. So when I breathe and return myself to this reality, I can see that I have simply passed a threshold in the imaginary competition that takes place everywhere in the world – I have moved onto the next level in The Game, which is not the equivalent of actual life even though it takes place within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being “no one” and thus desire to be “someone” as determined by an imaginary status/value assigned by myself as I accept and allow the imaginary competition for a higher status to exist through my own participation in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire a higher status than that of a “nobody” because I have feared losing the competition for status because within the current man-made way of organizing the functions of the world a low status means limited access to the resources and activities of this world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire a status which would allow me access to the resources and activities I wish to take part in because I have realized that there is no way to go around the current man-made system of running the world and reacted with fear to this fact.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in an education system that denies the majority of the population access to higher degree education as justified by the lack of funding - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my desire to be successful in this system counts as participating in the system and thus giving my permission for it to exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that the current man-made way of organizing education is not the equivalent of education, learning and teaching itself, but that it is just the way education is regulated at the moment according to prevailing principles.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I require the recognition of the university authorities in order to be “somebody” and to have access to higher degree education – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by believing and perceiving this to be necessary I disregard the fact that this only supports inequality and segregation as everyone is not given the same access equally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to require recognition from an authority in order to see value in myself and to recognize myself as capable of learning and applying information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to require validation of my learning abilities from someone I perceive to be superior to me (university authorities having “higher knowledge” or “wisdom”) in order to become an active participant of this world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become helpless in front of the possibility that I will not be accepted into university by believing and perceiving that my actions would then be limited and that there's “nothing I can do” if I am not granted access to the resources a university offers, not seeing the possibilities that lie outside of university.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit my actions with the belief that outside of university I am unable to act.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that university is just another man-made institution the purpose of which is to organize information, and that university is not the equivalent of information and knowledge itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that once I get into university I will be “different” because my status will then “upgrade” - not seeing, realizing and understanding that in the flesh I am the same whether I have this imaginary status or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive myself to have changed because of my changed status, not stopping to breathe and realize that I am just the same being as I was before this status upgrade.

I commit myself to not be fooled by imaginary statuses by reminding myself that no matter the opportunities and possibilities I am “granted” in the imaginary competition for status, I am still of the one and same flesh and breath as everyone else on this Earth.

I commit myself, when and as this newly found personality of “student status” surfaces, to stop, breathe and remind myself that as a physical being I am just the same as I would be without this status, and that as a physical being I am one with and equal to all that there is on Earth. I ask myself: “Who would I be now if I didn't have the student status?” and I push myself to answer in self-honesty. I continue my participation in this reality within and as the realization that everyone and everything around me is my equal.

I commit myself to work and study to bring about an education system that will provide access to education for all those interested in learning.