Day 285: Travel summary - moving and not moving

04-05082013

For the past few days I have been going through very personal challenges which I cannot (yet) share much about publicly because they concern other people and matters that are yet unresolved. This private process has consisted of finding structure and getting to know myself through written and spoken introspection. I am currently going through past events from my childhood which are related to the events in my life right now. One specific theme has been present in all the points I've been processing, though, and because it's a bit more general I would like to open it up.

I am writing the following as much to bring clarity to myself to what has been going on in my life as much as I'm writing it to share it with others. Recently I have had trouble “getting a grip” of myself and this is helping me get back on track.

I have now been traveling for three months in countries and cultures previously mostly unknown to me. I left home after a massive workload of 8 months had just barely been finished and lifted off my shoulders, and I looked forward to this trip as a reward and also as a chance to rethink my life which, as had become obvious during that extremely stressful and demanding 8 months, was not the kind of life I wanted to live.

During the very first week of traveling I was ecstatic. I felt free and unburdened, I was full of energy, I was enthusiastic about the places I visited, the people I met and the things I learned. After the first two weeks I changed my location from one country to another, and I remember looking at my travel plan and thinking: “I have so much left of this journey. What will I do with all this time?” It felt like looking at a gaping void. I may have survived the first two weeks on nothing but the energetic release of the relief of finally being free of my duties, but I still had many more to come – many more weeks when there would be no one with me, no one to guide me, no one to hold me, no one to go to – no one but myself. This made me anxious.

Little by little my enthusiasm declined. I went through a phase of travel stress where I tried to move myself because of self-judgement: I felt like I “had to” travel around and achieve all these cool experiences just because I had the extraordinary chance to, but meanwhile I started to crave for stability in a “normal” life, a life with structure and balance and a level of certainty, where I wouldn't have to worry about my shoes getting wet, food running out or electricity being cut. I started to withdraw from sightseeing and focused more on enjoying slow-paced everyday stuff such as cooking and walking around, of which I learned a lot. (One doesn't have to go see impressive monuments to learn of a culture, when it is in fact enough to just turn the door-handle and walk down the streets.) Interestingly though, soon enough I was in a country where all I had a chance to do was this everyday stuff, and I didn't even try to go out of my way to do something extraordinary, which with plenty of effort might have been possible. I felt too worn out to even try.

But, within that period of forcibly sitting on my ass I did rekindle something in me that required me to get incredibly bored in the right company. I got excited about returning home because I started to see all the possibilities in the framework of the life I had “left behind”, and my view on how I could change my life for the better got clearer. I grew less and less afraid of returning home.

After returning to “civilization” - to a first-world country – I have been regaining energy to be active, but not in a hyper-mode as I first started off. I have learned that because my life at the moment lacks the stability one would have in a permanent environment I need to give myself stability through enough rest. I have learned a bit more about listening to my body as an indicator of the state of my wellbeing. What I have picked up, though, is that when I am alone all of this works fine, but when I am with others – whoever they may be – I easily give up all initiative and just follow around with little to no input unless I am in an obvious alpha-position. I have been paying attention to this phenomenon and working with it recently.

One thing I use to justify this limpness with others is the fact that I'm on a holiday: “I don't have to do anything.” And to an extent this is true. I have very few responsibilities to attend to at the moment, and most of them are small arrangements concerning my return to Finland. Apart from that there is nothing I “should” be doing. But I could be doing a lot. When I am alone I am more inclined to make the most out of my situation by investigating the places I am in and the possibilities they offer, because there is no one else here to make my life an enjoyable, interesting and “worthwhile” experience for me. When I am with others I give this up because, in all truth, I find it tiring. Whether this is laziness or a sign of stress, I am not sure.

This tiredness has made my return look more fearsome than it did before. I look at the responsibilities and challenges awaiting me and I think: “Ugh, do I have to?” Which is insane as I was just a few weeks ago very excited about the very same things! I see that there is an inevitable polarity pattern here, going from one extreme to the other, and I take this as a sign of a need to balance myself. How I relate myself to my tasks and responsibilities is somehow fucked up – I'm guessing I see the tasks as something “bigger” than me, something “out of my league”. But I will return to this in self-forgiveness.

This journey has been an adventure into myself. This perspective into activeness/passiveness, motivation, living, experience and work is just one of the many, and I will probably continue with the other aspects of what I have learned in the posts to come. I will next continue with the self-forgiveness on the points I mentioned here.

Days 271-273: One big family

09-11072013

A new perspective on family was presented to me yesterday. In the western world our idea of a family is very narrow, consisting only of the “core family” which is usually the parents and their children. This view on family causes our circle of empathy to become limited, meaning that we only feel empathy towards those we perceive to be closest to us, and most people beyond those borders are met and interacted with from a distance. I have had conversations with friends where they have told me that as long as they and their families are safe and well, the rest of the world can die around them. “Why would I care?”, I'm told.

Right now I am visiting a culture in which the concept of family is more expansive. People call each others brothers and sisters and aunties and mamas and papas even if they weren't actually related by blood, because the concept of family covers all the people you interact with in your life, the people you live with, work with, spend time with, all the people you come across. Sometimes this leads to confusion about who is actually a brother to someone and whatnot, but mostly it just doesn't matter. Why would it be any different if we were born from the same mother? What difference would it make in the life we live right now, right here? Because my friend has been living here for months now she knows many people, and when she has introduced me to people I have immediately been accepted as a part of family. I am her “sister” and she is everyone's “family” so I am “family” as well.

Yesterday my friend told me how she had realized what difference this change in view actually makes in the actions of people, and I realized I have never really considered people outside my family as family. There is a lot of talk for example within christianity about us all being each others “brothers” and “sisters” - and I realized that I have never lived in such a way, I have never really seen other people without that boundary: “you are alien to me”, “keep your distance”. I tried this approach with another friend I came across that day, asking myself “what if he was my brother?”, and I noticed a difference in the level of empathy and care towards that person. It was a strange experience, like a veil being lifted, especially because I have been welcomed like a family member here thinking I have given the same back to others, but now it appears that actually I haven't.

I realize that the reason I raise these walls with others is fear. I have defined family as “the place where I am safe”, which is a definition that excludes the rest of humanity, which is a shitload of people. I realize that my actual family is the entire human race, because we have all originated from the same process of evolution. We're all branches of the same tree. It does not matter which branch I happen to be born in, because the trunk is the same for everyone. In order to live as equal to everyone else I need to see them as my family, as one with me, not as “the others”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to out of fear keep people at a distance and only allow a selected few get close to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define these selected few to be “family”, consisting of the people I grew up with and thus developed a strong bond of trust with and the people I have developed bonds of trust with later on through friendship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to require people to show me their “trustworthiness” before I let them close to me, not realizing that I am here pushing the responsibility over my own insecurity to others when in fact I should be facing myself and asking myself what it is I am protecting from others and ultimately from myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that insecurity is when I refuse to know myself and thus will not let others know me either because when others would see me I would be forced to see me as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “family” as a safe environment because the people included in “family” already know everything about me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I cannot let people outside of “family” close to me because “I don't know them” - not realizing that it is actually about them not knowing me and me feeling insecure about myself and how these people will react when they find out all about me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that people will judge and reject who I am and from within that fear regulate what I express of myself to present an appropriate appearance instead of living as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel uncertain about who I am and thus hesitate to show myself as I really am because I fear I will not be accepted by those around me who have not yet shown me how they relate to who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the people who have not yet seen who I am because I do not know whether they will accept me or not, whereas with “family” I already “know” (assume / trust) that I will be accepted no matter what.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define the people whose acceptance is uncertain to me as “unsafe” and “not family”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a behavioral pattern of keeping a distance to everyone who I've defined as “unsafe”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place value on the acceptance of others as a definer of my worth and thus create a desire to have acceptance / a fear of not having acceptance – not realizing that I am making myself completely dependent on the whims of others and thus living as self-neglect instead of embracing myself and gifting myself with self-acceptance, which is all that I actually need to know I am “worthy” - that I am LIFE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the acceptance or rejection of others does NOT define me unless I use it as an excuse to define myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all definitions are self-definitions – in other words, even if another person would define me through acceptance/rejection, this definition does NOT exist within my subjective experience of life – which is all I've got! - UNLESS I believe the definition and use it myself, which is when I myself direct myself to define myself a certain way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it does not matter how well I can guess how another will react to who I am, because in the end it is always a guess as people might choose differently depending on a many factors – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely on “family” to always accept me, not realizing that one day they may not and then I'd have to carry myself, and that it is thus my responsibility to be able to carry myself even without a “safety net”.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to people who get close to my “personal zone” and that I've limited and suppressed my self-expression accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a “personal zone” within which are all the things I feel insecure about and outside of which are all the things I feel secure about, the outside forming my appearance and the inside my hidden self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified to have a “personal zone” within which I can keep things that I do not want anyone to see – not realizing that by doing this I give myself permission to not look at those things either, which is when I neglect myself by not actually knowing myself thoroughly, the “dark” and the “light” side of me alike.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by letting others see the things I am insecure about I am able to get immeasurably valuable feedback about myself and the sides of me that I do not yet know, and that I am thus doing myself a great service by letting others see my insecurities as they then become insecurities no more; when you shine a light to a shadow all you see is what is actually in the shadow and the shadow itself disappears.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified for people to have “personal zones” because if others are allowed to have one, so am I, which means that I am safe just as long as I give others the same chance to hide.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold the “personal zones” of others by not approaching the topics that people seem to be uncomfortable with, not realizing that I am actually doing them a disservice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exert my discomfort on those who have approached my “personal zone” by getting angry and offended and blaming these people for being “invasive” and “insensitive”, either directly expressing this, talking about them behind their backs or passing blame within my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not embrace the chance to explore myself and get to know myself when others have approached my “personal zone” aka the sides of me I am insecure about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to people approaching my “personal zone” by instantly “withdrawing” into a defensive posture where I close myself up so that nothing else would “leak out”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I go into this defensive posture mentally I also tense up physically and thus cause damage and strain onto my physical self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to arrogantly believe and perceive that I already fully know who I am, not realizing that this belief/perception itself indicates an approach that will stop me from fully seeing myself.

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When and as I see myself tensing up in the presence of someone I find “unsafe”, trying to present the “good side” of me and hiding my weaknesses – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am hiding something I myself do not wish to see. I remind myself that there is nothing to fear, because the response/feedback of another is nothing personal and does NOT define me. I stabilize myself in breath and I ask myself: what do I not want the other to see? Why do I not want to see it myself? I locate the tension in my physical body and assist it to relax with breath. I continue with the interaction aware of the fears that are present within me and I keep myself open to opportunities to work on those fears directly with the other.

I commit myself to utilize the self-corrective statement above throughout this day to see what difference it makes in the interactions I have and how it affects my current state of being.

In order to see what difference it makes, I commit myself to face people as if they were my family by asking myself: “what if he/she was my brother/sister/mother/father?”

I commit myself to this experiment as a birthday gift to myself.

Days 269-270: Racial prejudice

06-07072013

Today I was walking to the convenience store with my friend and on the street we witnessed and uncommon incident. An old local man was sitting by the road and another man (caucasian) was walking from the store carrying a bottle of soda in a plastic bag. The old man stood up, stopped the other man, took the bottle from the plastic bag and started walking away with the bottle. Here we stopped to look at what was going on because the old man just did it, “this is now mine”, and started leisurely walking away, not running. The other man was as confused as we were and just followed the old man for a while. I don't know if he ever got it back because we continued on.

According to my friend what we saw was really out of place; she has lived here for 18 months and never seen anything like it. The culture here is that everything is of common property, but still people don't exactly “steal” unless they're driven to it by extreme poverty. The culture of sharing or forceful claiming might be the cause of the low crime rate – a lot of stealing is not recognized to be stealing, it's just taking what's rightfully yours. Which does have a logic of its own as all of the Earth's resources should belong to everyone, but we do not yet live in a society where this would actually function through equal distribution, so for now I just call this coercion and theft.

When we discussed this incident afterwards I pointed out the obvious “white man” prejudice: maybe the old man took from the white man because the overall misconception is that all white men are rich and have plenty from which to share. My friend then replied that during her stay here she has learned that these incidents mostly have to do with simple human relations rather than racism, and that every time when she has tried to solve a situation without bringing up the possible racial prejudice someone else pulls out the “racism card” – and this is when I realized that this is true, that the racial argument is an easy answer, an easy explanation. To just say “because racism” is to bypass all of the processes that lead up to racial prejudice or to any sort of prejudice for that matter. I will now carry responsibility for supporting racial prejudice by assuming it from others, and by downplaying a lot of what happens within a human being by compressing it into a “racism explanation”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that all the locals live according to the misconception that people with “white skin” (everyone who is not black) is rich in material possessions, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to this belief/perception with fear of others judging me and thinking less of me because of an assumption that is based on nothing but the colour of my skin and has nothing to do with who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being unfairly judged because it affects how others treat me, behave around me and relate themselves to me in spite of my own application.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if others choose to believe their perception of me in spite of my application, there is nothing I can do about it but to move on to other people and other circumstances where movement might be possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the concept of racism to explain human behavior without looking into what causes racism to formulate – what exactly accumulates into racism.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at myself and how I have lived as racism in order to figure out how racism is created.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of people of different ethnicities as mine as “others” - the ones that are opposite from me, separate from me, disengaged from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have always lived in a homogenous society with one dominant ethnicity, to define this one dominant ethnicity as “familiar” and “safe” and react with fear whenever I come across people of an ethnicity I have defined as “unfamiliar”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the physical appearance of a person is a boundary that separates us from each other, like a wall standing in between us, not stopping to actually face and interact with the other to see, realize and understand that the wall is a wall of FEAR which I have created and imagined to be real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within my fear to avoid facing a person of a different ethnicity, thus stopping myself from seeing, realizing and understanding that we are both LIFE, that we both breathe and move and have beating hearts and pulsing bodies, and that in that we are absolutely equal – the amount of LIFE in both of us is equal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be moved by my fear of “the others” into avoiding contact with those who I have defined as “unfamiliar” / “alien”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid eye contact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid touch contact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid conversation with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities through fear, reservation, reluctance, tension, stereotyping, assumptions - never giving these people a fair chance because I never allow myself to look at who they actually are with eyes unclouded by fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as prejudice by believing that “I know” something about the other better than he/she knows it him/herself, not realizing that this claim is arrogant as well as absurd because I cannot know the subjective experience of another, especially not based on first impression alone.

When and as I see myself avoiding contact with a person of an “unfamiliar” ethnicity – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am erecting an imaginary wall in between two equal beings of life. I stabilize my breath, find my heartbeat if possible and I move myself out of my position of hiding by physically opening myself up by releasing muscle tension, turning to face the other and making sure my posture is open, relaxed and supportive. I search myself for any trace of prejudice and remind myself that in fact I don't know anything about the other person for certain.

I commit myself to no longer accept and allow my racial prejudice to move me by utilizing the self-corrective statement above.

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I was just talking with my friend about the reoccurring themes we have discussed lately and I noticed that I was about to pull out another compressed explanation – this time only it was not the “racism card” but the idea of this culture being in a “teenage” state of development which I have used to explain immature behavior in relationships. I realized that there are more of these explanation cards than just the racism one, and I will deal with this issue separately.

Day 268: Stepping into a developing country

01072013

Yet another culture shock, this time the biggest so far. I am living luxuriously in a house and even here some of the basic commodities are missing. I am adjusting, though. What it seems to require is taking one step at a time, not looking ahead, focusing on the necessities, focusing on survival. And that's the most interesting thing: once put in a developing country with little to no infrastructure, all I can focus on is survival. Having a house like this and not living in the bush enables me to do something besides surviving, such as writing right now like this. I'm starting to have a clue of what it means in practical terms that giving everyone the basic infrastructure for survival would release them for “higher” kinds of human functions. When the heat is killing you, all you can do is look for a shade and sleep it off. When you're devoured by thirst, you track down water that's drinkable – if you're lucky, you'll find a tap. When you want to eat, you take what's offered – and if you get picky and want some vegetables with your noodles and rice, you take the 30 minute walk to the market stalls down the uneven mud paths. And this is how the day is spent. In the fulfillment of basic necessities. If a child is lucky enough, he/she will not be needed to take part in these activities and may have a chance to go to school. Otherwise, there's just no place for studying. There's no energy left for it.

I do not see why some people glorify these kinds of conditions, because the problems caused by them are unnecessary: a small wound may get so badly infected just because of the heat and lack of hygiene that it may require hospital care. This all may be fun if you're taking a holiday from your everyday life, staying in a bungalow at the resort areas and taking organized cruises to see the dolphins – people might even say it's “relaxing” to be in a place so primitive – but that's just because those people don't actually live here, they have a place to go back to, somewhere to return to once it gets too uncomfortable. The only thing so far I've found enviable is the night sky. Here it actually gets dark so you can actually see the stars, milky way and all, and that helps you remember where it is we actually are: on a rock floating in space. It would be awesome to find a way to reduce light pollution in the busy parts of the globe.

So I will be living the local's life here – no resorts, bungalows or cruises, just the everyday drill. There will be some work but mostly chilling and taking care of basic needs. I am looking forward to this learning experience because it is unlike anything I've ever experienced before, and also, I think, one of the most necessary things I have ever done. It's time to bring in some perspective.

Day 267: Racism - the joke is on me

30062013

I am right now in a situation I knew to be coming but which I did not really know how to prepare myself for: I am an ethnic minority in my current environment, and the locals aren't shy to express their curiosity about it. Today as I was walking in town I experienced it in a very negative way (and from what I've heard, it is often intended to be so), but the thing is, I cannot really know what another person thinks or expects, so all I can do is to make sure I approach people with the best intentions. I realize that I walk here as an ambassador of “the white man” and that is why I have treated everyone with friendliness, just to make sure that I get something right – but I realize that I am driven by fear, because in-between every encounter with the locals I just found myself exhausted and conflicted. A friend of mine has lived here for about 18 months and according to her experience there is a common misconception about “the white men” that they're all rich and selfish, and that knowledge affects how I position myself towards the locals. I do not know whether it is the actual spiteful experience of the people that I sense or whether I'm just making this up.

So in order to be able to approach people as myself and without fear I'm going to have to face my fears. Why am I terrified?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that people will want to exploit me, harm me, abuse me and rob me because of a misconception and a stereotype that I fall into because of my ethnicity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that there is no way for me to influence this false image that others might have of me, not realizing that I am in fact able to do so through my own behavior and application, at least to a certain extent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to stand as an example to correct the misconception of the people here, thus constantly stressing about whether I'm “succeeding” or “failing” in my interactions with others, fearful that others may have judged me to be a stereotypical “white man” and that I have failed to educate them – not realizing that it is not my responsibility ALONE to correct the misconception of an entire nation of an entire ethnic group, but the responsibility of ALL “white men” and/or people in general.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if I'd do my ultimate best to convince people that their beliefs are misconceptions, people might still not be convinced because they make up their own minds and I cannot do that for them – and that thus all that I can do is do my best, no more, no less.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about presenting a good image of myself to convince people that their beliefs are misunderstandings, not realizing that by trying to appear as something I am not here as myself and thus live out dishonesty, and that I am thus sabotaging my own attempts to create relations based on truthfulness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that living as myself is not enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that living as myself is not enough to convince others that their assumptions are incorrect, and that I need to present an extra-good image in order to make up for the misgivings of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel responsible for the misgivings of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and make up an entire human history of abuse and slavery by pushing myself to be the best possible presentation of a person, not realizing that this is both too much and too little – too much in the sense that I am trying to make myself carry more responsibility than I can bear, and too little in the sense that simple acts of kindness will not actually fix the problems left by abuse (here: colonialism and war).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though acts of simple kindness (i.e. smiling, greeting, having a conversation) will not suffice for actually helping these people, they are all that I can give right now before I am ready to contribute in a way that will address the bigger issues.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect every local person to measure me against a stereotype and thus live as the fear of failure within every interaction, not realizing that my “success/failure” with this challenge is not measured by how many people I manage to “convert” but by who I am and become within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to seeing a local person with fear through a scenario of possible failure, not seeing a person in front of me but only a measure of my worth – not realizing that this act of complete ignorance of the person here with me is the exact kind of selfishness I wish to not represent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by expecting and believing everyone to think of me a certain way I support the whole mind pattern of racism – I live as what I fear from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the malicious thoughts of others because believing the thought might lead to malicious actions, not realizing that in-between the thought, the permission and the action is space in which I am able to influence the outcome of the situation.

I commit myself to live as who I am – not as a presentation of who I believe I should be.

I commit myself to trust that as long as I am clear on my principles I do not have to put on an appearance to show others the best I can be.

I commit myself to focus on breathing and self-honesty when and as I interact with the locals, aware of any and all stress points in thought processes as well as in the physical body as tension and pain.

I commit myself to no longer justify the existence of the spiteful “white man” stereotype by giving it my permission to exist by apologetically recognizing it in the behavior of others – and I commit myself to investigate my own feelings of spite towards what the human kind has done.

Days 265-266: Adaptation - letting go of "culture shock"

28-29062013

When I arrived to New Zealand I wrote about my difficulties with adjusting to the new culture I had stepped into. I shortly realized that I was following a pattern: every time so far during this trip when I have moved from one country to another I have gone into some form of a culture shock, which has affected the way I view the new environment – in other words, I have distorted the reality by looking at it through negative expectations. This has become more and more clear to me now that I have returned to Auckland, the same city where I first landed on in New Zealand, and have experienced the city in a whole new way as my culture shock has faded. I will now write about this experience in order to support myself when I change my environment again in a couple of days – I will no longer accept and allow myself to be directed by my culture shock.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define a place according to my negative experience of it without asking myself where my experience came from and how it was created.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive the new environment I have arrived to to be a “bad place” (in whatever terms have applied to each individual case) based on my experience of discomfort, shock and resistance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist adjusting to a new environment by reacting to everything that is different from what I am used to and refusing to let go of my reaction, believing my initial reaction to things changing to be the one and only truth.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to mistake my first impression of things with the reality of things, not realizing that they are in fact not the same thing at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the temperature of my environment changing from comfortable to less comfortable and to through that reaction define the less comfortable temperature as “worse” than the more comfortable one, thus resisting every bit of my environment where the temperature was less comfortable – which was everywhere – and so making my own living unbearable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the cleanliness of my environment changing from relatively clean to not so clean, moving my focus into noticing all the dirt in my environment and ignoring all the clean spots, through this behavior thus defining my environment as “dirty” and resisting every bit of my environment that I perceived to be dirty – which was almost everywhere – and through this making myself feel thoroughly uncomfortable no matter where I went.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the people in my environment changing in terms of ethnicity, behavior, openness, friendliness and helpfulness, going into helplessness and isolating myself from people as I did not allow myself to cope with this change and instead defined this new environment to be “wrong” and the old one to be “right”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wish for my environment to stay the way it has been so that I wouldn't have to step outside my comfort zone and actually make myself comfortable in the new environment – not realizing that it takes actual effort and movement to live the circumstances I am in into such that I enjoy living in – and thus getting disappointed as my wish was not fulfilled when my environment did change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that adapting to new circumstances does not happen all by itself but requires me to pull myself out of passiveness and make the adaptation happen.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am required to move myself in order for adaptation to happen.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist moving myself because I have expected adaptation to happen all by itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that adapting to new circumstances is an active process throughout which I need to breathe, be aware of myself and my surroundings, find the problems and propose and initiate the solutions myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist committing myself to the active process of adaptation because I have wanted to stay within my comfort zone where things were effortless, not realizing that the comfort zone is in the past because it was tied to circumstances that are no longer here, and that I am thus holding onto my memory of what used to be instead of facing what is actually now HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify demanding my new circumstances to be like my old circumstances with the belief that what I find comfortable must be “the right way” of doing things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my new circumstances for not being like my old circumstances because I have believed my demand to be justified.

When and as I move onto a new environment – such as tomorrow when I fly to another country – I commit myself to remind myself that I cannot take anything for granted, and that I am going to have to reassess and reorganize every bit of my every day living. I commit myself to reserve myself time for this process in order to make sure my basic needs are fulfilled. I commit myself to support and assist myself in this process of adaptation by focusing on keeping my breath deep, slow and relaxed. I commit myself to move through all moments of resistance with the assistance of breath as I see, realize and understand that most of my resistance is not due to my circumstances being actually unbearable but because of me facing the borders of my comfort zone. I commit myself to utilize the help of other people when necessary. I commit myself to embrace and explore the new environment within and as the realization that other people live and survive in these circumstances as well, and that they are thus not going to kill me or endanger my immediate well-being.

Day 263: Travel stress

24062013

Go see all the cool things! Through a camera lens!

In the past couple of days I have been dealing with a new kind of a stress factor. I have been staying in the house of a man who is a really active traveller himself, and him giving me all these travel tips triggered some kind of a travel stress in me. There are thoughts telling me I should be doing a lot of things, I should be moving all the time, I should be making sure I squeeze out all the experiences I can from the time that I've got – and at first I moved according to this. Then when it was no longer possible for me to be tirelessly active all the time and I stopped doing so, I started having pains. The thoughts were still there, now with blame, telling me I SHOULD be doing things, really, I SHOULD! And my neck and shoulders have been reacting in similar ways as within work stress, getting unusually jammed and tense and causing me massive headaches – and I have been resistant to give myself rest because it has felt like “a waste of time”. Now that the owner of the house is back and there is another couchsurfer here with me I notice them causing me more stress, because now that I am no longer alone I have someone to “report to” - as if they were watching me, assessing my way of traveling, judging me if I'm not as active as they would be. Essentially I am judging myself as I have set myself an ideal of an “active traveler” and constantly resent myself when I'm not living up to it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a “traveler ideal” for myself based on what I have seen others do, not realizing that I am basing a goal for living, a principle, on what others appear to be with no knowledge of what their inner experience is – in other words, what their motivation to be “active travelers” is and how they actually fuel their actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel stressed about not reaching up to the level of those around me, fearing that I will be seen as a “lousy traveler” - as less than others – and that I will be judged according to what others see of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “active traveling” to be “the right way” of traveling – that which I “should be” doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “inactive traveling” to be “the wrong way” of traveling – that which I “should not be” doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “the right way of traveling” to consist of being in movement from morning until evening, reaching for new experiences, going to exciting places, exploring all possible activities, socializing with all the people you meet, sleeping as little as possible to maximize your waking hours – not realizing that this ideal is simply not possible to live according to as the physical capacity of a human being is limited.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself an ideal that is impossible to live up to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my traveling ideal, not realizing that it is such that no one could do without self-compromise.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “the wrong way of traveling” to consist of not utilizing the possibilities of your travel environment as effectively as possible by taking time to rest, relax, not be in a hurry and focus on one thing at a time, and not planning your next move constantly to make sure you don't waste any time – not realizing that I have demonized all the things necessary for a human being to function properly and to actually take in one's environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about my day not going “according to plan”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear of failure whenever I consider resting, not doing anything “special” or stopping to enjoy something, and whenever I find myself in a situation where I have not planned what to do – not realizing that I limit myself from actually living the moment that I have.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of resting as “failure”, not realizing that if my body is in need of rest it is advisable to do so for the sake of my own well-being, my well-being actually being a kind of “success” in itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of stopping to enjoy something as “failure”, not realizing that stopping is necessary for me to actually experience and explore the moment I am living, and that without stopping I am never really HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of not running after new exciting experiences as “failure” with the reasoning that I am thus “wasting” the opportunities of my traveling - not realizing that even though I am currently traveling and spending a lot of resources on doing so I am still the same kind of a physical being in a physical environment as I was back home, and that no matter where I am on Earth I will always be living within this one single NOW-moment of breath, and that this moment will always contain varying opportunities and possibilities, and that I need to choose which possibilities to seize according to what is best for ALL, this including my own well-being – and that thus there is no such thing as “failure”, there are simply different kinds of choices that serve different kinds of purposes and bring out different outcomes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive traveling to be about “special experiences”, not realizing that all experiences are of the same value when experienced within and as the physical instead of enhancing and diminishing them through the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify traveling being about “special experiences” because I am spending a lot of money on traveling, thinking that I have to get my money's worth out of this trip – not realizing that I am motivated by fear because money is something that is scarce and valuable and because I worked a lot for a long period of time to have enough money to do this trip, and that I am now afraid that all that effort will have been in vain if my experience is not “big enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress because of money.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that money at the moment being the “unavoidable evil” I have got to learn how to live with it, which means that I cannot continue to see myself as “less powerful” than money because money is a man-made agreement which I, as a part of the human race, can in fact influence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about spending money on traveling because I have been afraid of my own survival before, during and after the trip.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear every time I spend money as I fear that I am making “the wrong choice” and digging my own grave. *[An interesting point to elaborate on – the moment of giving away money and the reactions within it.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all the while I travel I am not in a different reality where life would be about chasing after “special experiences”, as this is not the case in my “normal life” either. *[The term “normal life” needs more investigation, “normal” here being stagnation as opposed to “traveling” which is movement.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about making the most out of my life because I fear that when I die it will not have been the “best it could have been”, not realizing that there are no such things as “the best life” or “the worst life” - there are just different kinds of lives, all with equal value, and a myriad of factors that contribute to what the “life story” and the lived life experience become.

I commit myself to support myself to live each moment from the starting point of breath by returning myself to breath and thus to myself whenever I notice myself not breathing.

When and as I see myself thinking “I should be [doing something]” OR experiencing it in my flesh as tension around my neck and shoulder area - I stop, I breathe and I realize that the use of this word and/or the according experience in flesh is/are a sign that I am pushing myself towards an impossible ideal. I ask myself what it is that I fear and what it is I am trying to be/become. As I reveal my hidden fears and desires to myself I release them in breath within and as the realization that there is nothing I “should be” doing, ever, and that there are simply possibilities and choices between them. I commit myself to reconsider the activities at hand from within myself and as myself while taking my entire physical existence into consideration.

I commit myself to take care of myself by giving myself enough rest, thus showing myself mercy instead of cruelty.

When and as I see myself planning my trip (or my life) ahead by any amount of time, hours, days, weeks or months – I stop, I breathe and I realize that by doing this I am escaping and abusing the present moment. I ask myself whether it is actually necessary to plan what I was planning, and if not, I ask myself why I was planning what I was planning. I ask myself what I fear and what I desire and how these plans would serve them – how would I avoid what I fear with this plan? How would I reach what I desire with this plan? As I bring these hidden motives to surface I release them in breath. I commit myself to give myself the time I need to bring myself back to stability and back to breath before I continue with what I was doing.

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 256: Inability to adjust to changes in environment

15062013

Seoul

I have arrived to Auckland, New Zealand this morning and I am extremely uncomfortable here. The hostel feels too big and very dirty, the town seems messy, filthy and very unsafe. I will now write about my experience to figure out how much of this is my self-induced paranoia and how much is actual concern.

I have been warned about NZ and Australia all the while I have been traveling South-Korea and Japan, which are exceptionally safe countries on a global scale. I have been told that in NZ and AUS everyone will try to rob me and take advantage of me, and that people are unfriendly and malicious. On some unconscious level I have believed everything I have been told unquestioned, without placing these claims into proper context, and thus created huge prejudice resulting in fear and suspicion.

When I arrived here this morning I noticed that my attitude towards strangers had changed from what it was in Japan. I was fearful of everyone around me. I was very watchful of my belongings. I didn't want to take any unnecessary risks and leave my bag for even two seconds. This got challenged at the hostel I am staying at, because when I asked for a locker for my valuable belongings, they told me that they only had ones that cost extra and that this hostel is so safe that I would most likely not even need one. So I chose not to get a locker even though I don't really trust this environment.

Another thing here that I reacted to is the filthiness. Japan and Finland are very clean countries by many standards, and so coming here feels like I've stepped into a ghetto – something I did not expect at all from the country's largest city. It is difficult for me to feel comfortable in a place where the streets are not clean and where the floors are so dirty I have to wear shoes even indoors, like I was constantly protecting myself from something. I am used to things being clean, and now that they are not and I have to go through extra effort to maintain my basic hygiene I feel like I can't relax anywhere. My discomfort cannot be blamed on my environment, though: it is what it is and I can do my part to make it a better environment, but it is not going to become any different just because I dislike it. This is what the physical circumstances are and here's what I can do about it.

I have also refrained from taking too much contact to other travelers in this hostel, although I have noticed than when I have done so my discomfort has dissolved a bit. By recognizing the existence of these fluctuating particles in my environment I make them less uncomfortable, less alien, less distant – even if it was through just a small moment of contact.

The thing is, this place is probably just about as dangerous as my hometown: there's always something suspicious going on and if you happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time you might get dragged in, especially as a woman. But that's no reason to lock oneself indoors, because the “bad guys” out on the streets are people as well, and people can be dealt with unless the circumstances are so extreme that the other is so possessed that (s)he's “out of hands”. I will not go and beg for trouble, but I will not accept and allow myself to live limited by fear either. If I need something from the convenience store down the street, I have to be able to go and get it (because other people here seem to have no trouble doing so despite the dodginess).

So this is an issue of lack of self-trust and of a distorted view on my fellow human beings. Also stuff to do with my comfort zone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the claims and generalizations others have made about certain nationalities without question because I have wanted to put down one culture to elevate the one I have been within to make it feel better, not realizing that this mindset will bear its consequences when I will eventually have to walk among the nationalities/countries that I have been putting down before.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the people living in New Zealand and Australia are unfriendly, malicious and abusive and to expect such behavior from them, thus living within and as a state of constant fear and anticipation when/as I apply myself as if the others were already exhibiting unfriendliness – which in reality they are not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see people according to how I believe and perceive them to be instead of looking at who the people actually are, how they are actually living and what they are actually doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate these specific nationalities from me by generalizing them into a sub-category of the human species, not realizing that by doing this I stop seeing them as beings one with and equal to me, as adult human beings built of the same physical matter, and instead perceive them to be something “more than” me because they hold the power to exert their maliciousness onto me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if another was to exert their ill will onto me, this is the other's expression of who they are and nothing personal towards me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not place myself in the shoes of another in order to see, realize and understand that what drives another into maliciousness happens as a consequence of the same mind functions that drive each and every being with a mind, and that from this point of sympathy/understanding it is possible to actually support and assist another with whatever is driving them into maliciousness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that another's maliciousness is my fault by taking it personally, not realizing that I am not responsible for another living out their fuck-ups as I am not the one moving the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being in contact with other people who I have defined as “potentially malicious” and to protect myself from getting hurt by avoiding all contact with these people by i.e. focusing on my own tasks and adopting a “cool personality” within which I appear to “not need” the company of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become reluctant to engage in any contact with the people I have met here because I have wanted to protect myself from getting hurt.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is enough for me to recognize the presence of these people through eye contact, smalltalk and physical acceptance and that I do not have to take part in their activities (i.e. excessive drinking) in order to make our co-existence more bearable – and that it is OK that I do my own stuff just as long as I carry responsibility for the fact that we all live together and need to get along as equal, honest, communicative beings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel isolated from these people because I do not see a connection point – something we could relate to in each other – not realizing that the fact that we are human beings and all here right now is enough of a similarity for us to recognize each other's value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will think I am “weird” because I attempt to be considerate, friendly and honest with everyone, unlike many of the people I have seen and interacted with here – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel isolated from others because I believe that others see my behavior in a “weird” light simply because it's different from theirs.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I cannot influence how others choose to perceive my actions, and that this perception that others form is thus not the equivalent of my actions and not a valid evaluation of them either.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see people as people but as stereotypes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see people as people but as representations of my fears.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see people as people but as the definition of them I have created based on my fears.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to project my fears on people and thus blind myself from seeing who they actually are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for comfort in my environment, and when not finding it, instead of returning to self-awareness and finding comfort from within my own body, blaming my environment for not giving me the experience of comfort and creating a repulsion towards my physical environment because I defined it as “discomfort”, the opposite of the experience I was seeking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though within this environment it takes me more time and effort to ensure myself proper hygiene, I am perfectly able to secure myself within these circumstances – it is simply not as straightforward as what I am used to, and I am used to the best circumstances this world has to offer, which means that wherever I go I will experience a downgrade.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect the best possible circumstances everywhere I go in terms of cleanliness and hygiene, not realizing that most of the world has never had the resources to develop such a well-functioning system as what I have lived within.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my comfort zone as that which everyone should have.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my comfort zone to be the one and only true way of doing things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that most of my discomfort within these circumstances comes from my tension and unwillingness to relax and not so much from any actual issues in the environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become dependent on the things within my comfort zone to always be available so that I could experience constant comfort and stability, thus inevitably crashing as the experience of comfort and stability has not been built within me but on external factors which will always eventually fade, erode, crumble and/or disappear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely my constant experience of comfort on the cleanness of my environment. (This extends to other areas as well – this is why I have issues i.e. getting my entire body dirty when roaming in the nature. I can't deal with dirty/moist clothing either. Interesting. Gotta dig into this more.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my negative experience of a dirty environment is not going to change the fact that the environment needs to be cleaned up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to filter all sensory information about my environment based on the negative experience I have had towards its dirty spots, not realizing that not all of the areas of my environment are actually dirty – I just make them feel as if they were.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume everything around me is dirty instead of checking whether or not this is actually true.

I commit myself to face the people in my environment as beings made of the exact same substance than myself and thus of the exact same value as myself, with the same fears, desires and insecurities behind each and every pair of eyes, opening myself up to others instead of defending myself from imaginary threats.

I commit myself to become aware of the expectations I have of others, to let go of them in breath and to accept and allow others to show themselves to me as they will.

When and as another expresses maliciousness either towards me or another, I stop, I breathe and I remind myself this is nothing personal towards me but another expressing him/herself. I place myself in the shoes of another in order to understand why the other has a need to express him/herself through maliciousness: what are they defending themselves from? I direct myself to live out support and assistance to the other according to what I see and what the situation requires.

When and as I resist being in contact with the people around me either through eye contact, conversation or physical recognition/acceptance – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am escaping others because I fear getting hurt through their judgement – which is in fact just self-judgement through me adopting the judgement of another. I realize that we are all one and equal in our fears and insecurities, and that the people around me are just as fucked up as me. I breathe and I move myself out of the resistance by lifting my eyes to meet the eyes of others and allowing myself to move onwards from that point of contact.

I commit myself within all this to take care of myself by not accepting and allowing myself to be abused by others – by taking care of my personal space and recognizing my own value.

I commit myself to breathe through my experience of disgust, revulsion and discomfort concerning my physical environment and to make it habitable and comfortable for myself movement by movement, breath by breath.

Days 253-254: I don't want to go home

10-11062013

A friend told me she is returning to Finland to continue studying the same subject I have applied to study myself. I reacted to this information with relief and joy, which is because recently as I have been traveling I have become more and more uncertain about what to do with my life and have created a reluctance to return to Finland at all. I found comfort in the fact that she would be there with me because then I would feel less lonely, less alone, less of a “lonely warrior” when my life takes on a new direction – or when I am supposed to take a new direction – when I am to change my life into something it has not been before.

See, I have created a reluctance to return to my home town and region not because of the place itself – the town is nice to live, work and study in – but because of the life I have lived within it. I fear that as soon as I return my “old life” will suck me back in because of all the habits and tendencies that I associate with the physical location and everything that I have lived through within it in the past. I fear that I will regress. I fear that my environment will not support me in my process of change. I fear that my environment will make change more difficult than it already is. But here I make changing like a big demon that I have to battle, I make it more than it is. There is bound to be friction because when there is a harmonious flow of particles and one particle suddenly decides to change its course it will conflict with the other particles – but that is just what it is, movement and inevitabilities, and it should not be interpreted to be anything else. If I change, I change, and it will require being certain of who I am as I change, what I am changing and who I become as I change. Not by enforcing a mantra of ideals but by knowing myself and living according to who I choose to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear change because I fear standing utterly alone with my decisions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist returning to an environment which I believe, perceive and assume to not support me in any way in my process of change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my environment will resist and suffocate my attempt to change the direction of my life and that I will be helpless in front of this resistance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive myself to be unable to stand within and as my decisions in the face of external pressure or resistance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when/as/if I get into conflict with my environment – when there is friction in between how I have decided to direct my life and how my environment responds to it – I will be left without support and will thus crumble like a cookie.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if my environment does not support me I cannot stand, not realizing that with this belief I demand that my environment gives me support and make my own standing dependent on how my environment sees me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stand within and as my decisions only when certain conditions are met (when my environment shows me enough support), not realizing that by doing so I live as less than I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that my fundamental support – myself – is not going anywhere and will always “be there for me” even if I received no external support i.e. from other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, within my fear of failure, to create a worst-case scenario where I give into peer pressure and screw up my life completely, making all of my process so far meaningless as I regress through my self-limitation to who I was in the past – not realizing that by creating and upholding such a scenario in the first place I believe myself to be just as “weak” as the scenario implies and will support myself to live out this exact “weak personality”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive myself to be “weak” (unable to direct myself / easily directed by others) because I have lived like this in the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify living as this “weak personality” by blaming my inability to change the direction of my life on my environment, accusing my environment of suppressing me and not giving me permission to live my life how I choose to - not realizing that no matter the amount of external pressure I am always the one to accept and allow my inner experience to be influenced and my movement to be directed by external factors, and that the responsibility for my self-compromise thus cannot be pushed on anyone else but is in fact mine to carry.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear going back home because I fear it will be difficult and that I will fail to change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that hardship is an inevitable part of the process of change and that it is not required to be feared – it will be there whether I fear it or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent, avoid and fear hardship as I have not wanted to recognize it to be a part of life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear hardship because it contains the possibility of failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that just as every breath I take requires my muscles to move and go through effort, so does living one's life require consistent effort, pushing and active movement – otherwise one will end up standing still.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear adversity because I fear that I will fail to overcome it, not realizing that there is no way to perfectly “win” the battle with the challenges I face but simply different ways to deal with them, each with their own results.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to find a way to deal with the challenges I face – one that would not compromise me or anyone and which would take into consideration the consequences of my actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust my ability to figure out what choice of action would consider the best of all (myself included).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I do not trust myself to make good decisions I require others to validate my decisions for me to make up for my lack of self-trust and thus make it easier for myself to crumble and not live according to my decisions when others do not give me the validation I believe myself to need.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my life by not trusting myself to be able to make well-informed, considerate and responsible decisions.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a mind-scenario where change is a big, dramatic battle with opposing forces that try to destroy me with all their might, believing and perceiving myself to be doing the “right thing” and the opposers to be promoting the “wrong thing” - not realizing that change is only dramatic if I compare it to the passiveness that precedes and surrounds it, and that without the act of comparison change is just movement among movement, life among life, breath among breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that change is not about big, movie-like storylines but about individual moments of breath where change is created through stopping, re-assessing, re-directing and setting off to motion again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the change that happens HERE in the moment of breath by only focusing on the dramatic scenario of “big changes”, not realizing that the drama exists only in my mind and not in the actual reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that change is “big” when in fact it is actually “small” - not a series of movie-like events but single moments of breath in self-awareness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear change as I have believed and perceived it to be something “big” where one can also fail in a grand scale – not realizing that change is not something bigger than me or beyond me but that change IS me as in every moment I inhale and exhale I have a new chance, a new beginning, a new option, a chance to clear the table and choose again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that change is nothing to be afraid of because even if I'd fail I can always try again or choose another direction.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear severing ties to people, groups and activities which I no longer wish to keep a part of my life because I fear that if my choice to do so proves to have been a bad choice I would not have the chance to go back – not realizing that my wish to keep that back gate open, that path to what used to be familiar and comfortable, is born out of the fear of failing and ending up alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume that when I choose to leave these people, groups and activities behind me, it will be seen as a hostile act which would then awake negative reactions in others which would then be exerted onto me – not realizing that this is NOT an accurate forecast of what the future will be but is actually the worst-case scenario I have created in my mind based on my fears through guesswork – and that this worst-case scenario can be avoided through how I apply myself within the process of severing these ties.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear re-arranging my priorities and the practical changes they would introduce to my life because I fear the society I live in will not support me in this choice of lifestyle. [These are mainly practical issues that for now I have to wait to solve – I'll get back to this when the issue is here.]

I commit myself to face the response of the environment I change myself in, be it familiar or not, within and as the realization that I do not know in advance what the response of my environment will be and that this is in no way relevant to my decision and standing.

I commit myself to remind myself in the case of conflict that the reactions of my environment are not caused by me and not my responsibility; In situations of conflict I commit myself to take care of and carry responsibility for my own reactions, the experience that I create, uphold and believe in.

I commit myself to focus on the change that happens HERE in the moment of breath within and as the realization that these moments are the ones that accumulate to the “big” changes that I aim for in my life – and I commit myself to support and assist myself with this by practicing self-aware breathing whenever I remember to.