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.

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.

--

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.

--

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.

Day 252: Spirituality, bitterness and spite

09062013

I have been visiting a lot of buddhist temples and shinto shrines while I have been in Japan, and I have made a habit out of doing the traditional prayer ritual at some of the places I visit. I have used this ritualized way of slowing oneself down to bring myself back to breath and to “map out” who I am and where I'm at during the moment of prayer, and I have made small commitments and realignments while doing so. So instead of wishing for all the good things from a god above I have made assessments on how to actually work my way through my challenges.

During my visits I have also come to re-address spirituality. On some of the temples/shrines I have had experiences where I have sensed the “energy” of the place – something I did a lot when I was more into spirituality and which I'm still not sure to be a genuine sensation of something present or a paranoia created in my mind. What I have noticed to be growing out of this, though, is a bitterness towards habitualized spirituality, religion and prayer.

In Japan the main religions, buddhism and shinto, are practiced mostly out of habit, and people who are actually “into” the religion are considered a little bit odd or old-fashioned, just like in the culture I grew up in. Regardless of this it is common to visit the temples/shrines at least during the big holidays to wish for a long, healthy and prosperous life – to get the blessing of the gods, you know, just in case.

I have noticed myself starting to resent the places that are really big and popular among locals and tourists, marking them as “having lost their spirit”, something that I sense to still be present in the smaller and more remote locations. I have been growing spite towards the people who walk through the temple areas snapping pictures, buying amulets, praying for their fantasies to come true – and I have not realized that I do not know what all these hundreds and thousands of people actually experience within themselves – that I have been creating and believing an unfair generalization with which I have separated myself from others in order to feel “special” because “I know” and “they don't”. I have also made “them” different from myself by not considering how the desire to ask for assistance from gods and spirits is created out of reasons that are fully comprehendible to me because I am a human being just like the others; the others are just like me in an earlier stage of time, but I would rather resent them than sympathize with them because I have not come to terms with my own fears and uncertainties.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger and sadness to the loss of purpose I have seen in places that have been dedicated to spirituality, which to me represents contemplation, humility, presence, meditation, gratefulness and self-awareness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger and sadness when a place that used to be dedicated to spirituality in the sense I understand it has become a place to buy yourself a ticket to heaven and salvation – not realizing that religion itself is founded on fear and the attempt to save oneself and that these temples/shrines I have visited have most likely never been dedicated to spirituality in the sense I understand it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold an idealized image of what the spiritualized places have been in the past so that I could blame their current state on the people that I find in them today, not realizing that these places have already been founded and built on fear and greed and that the ideal I believe in may have not ever existed – and that the responsibility for their usage and status cannot be shoved onto anyone but all of us who accept and allow it to continue existing that way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have reacted with anger to what I have seen at the temples and shrines, to channel my anger and frustration onto the people who are present and filter my perception of them through my reaction of anger, thus creating a mind-map generalization titled [people at holy places] which contains the attributes [ignorant / lazy / self-centered], through which I have then seen everyone to be contained in this generalization and separated their actions and motivations from myself, not seeing, realizing and understanding that the reasons for their actions are such that I myself have lived according to and would still be fully capable of.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to people “defiling” the places I have defined as “holy” when I have perceived and believed their motivations to be “unpure” - not realizing that I am looking at the other through my reaction of anger and thus only seeing what I want to see (separation).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my definition of “holy places” unquestioned.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that a location anywhere in the physical reality is just a location – a place in time, space and matter – and that all other meanings, purposes and values for the place are created in the conceptual reality which is not actually concretely here in any other way than through the actions we accept and allow ourselves to commit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that “holy places” are holy to me only because I have decided to believe so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that while it is alright to have these “holy places” as a symbol or a reminder of the qualities I wish to develop in myself, it is self-deception to believe my interpretation and usage of these physical locations to be “the one and only truth” according to which everyone should live.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by being angry at people who utilize the “holy places” in their own ways I am demanding the world to live “my way” instead of looking at what is actually being done and whether or not it is best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the people at “holy places” by making myself blind to what moves them to act the way they do and to be there in the first place.

I commit myself to no longer judge the people at the “holy places” I visit - be it temples, shrines, churches or mosques – and to instead place myself in their shoes to see, realize and understand why it is they are here and what it is that moves them – and I commit myself to do this within and as the realization that these people are no different from me and are motivated by the same fear that drives me.

I commit myself to study religious and spiritual practices from within the realization that my perception of their origin has been idealized and that I do not actually know how these practices have been established.

I commit myself to carry responsibility for the consequences of the practice of religion and spirituality by not participating in practices that I see to have harmful consequences and by becoming aware of the consequences of the practices that I do attend to.

Day 251: Rebooting

08062013

I have just slept off a few night's worth of not enough rest, and I feel oddly powerless. I am trembling, there is no strength left in my muscles, I am sleepy. There are many factors contributing to this and I will now go through them to see what and how much can be done about this experience.

I have been going on with less than 6 hours of sleep for three consecutive days. Last night I slept 10 hours and woke up today at 1 pm. I felt like I could have slept even more but wanted to get up so that my rhythm wouldn't be completely messed up – and I knew that sleeping more hours in a row would not really help me because the REM stage was long gone already. So after waking up I've eaten, stretched and walked around a bit to wake myself up, and I am now in a really weak state with not much will to move at all. This may be a sign that I simply need more physical rest after a few days of running around sightseeing – or it may be a sign of a point I am reluctant to face and try to escape into limpness.

The past few days have been really fun. I have learned a lot about the culture I am living in – and also those of the other travelers - and enjoyed the company of different kinds of awesome people. I have learned new things about myself by exposing myself to various kinds of experiences and I have unveiled some new points which I have so far been unable to write about. I have been trying to write, but basically I have been unable to focus and haven't really known what to write about so I have decided not to until I have some grasp of what I am actually going through at the moment. Last night's sleep seems to have “rebooted” me in such a way that I feel like I have “returned to myself”, to a state of stability of some sort, and I'm starting to get a hold of myself again. The physical weakness may be a sign of this recovery.

I have been exploring further the point of living within, as and through relationships of dependency. I have gained new perspective on the network of relationships I “left behind” and I now have a clearer view on how I have been dependent on the people back home. I have also realized how easy it is to create new relationships of dependency with others when none of the people involved question this. The fatigue I am now experiencing might also be a sign of the re-stabilizing that happens when the people I have been dependent on to create my experience for me have left and I have “had to” become fully self-directed again. The weariness might also be from upholding a character/appearance while being social with other people.

I've become more aware of the creation point of a personality/character, and I have for example been looking at my “drunk personalities”. It seems that when I am drunk I become very gleeful, playful and more inclined to talk to others – all qualities which I would like to express when sober but which I suppress for one reason or another and only release when I am in the social situation of drinking. So this character I could write about in more detail.

Alright, so points I will write about:

• drunk personalities
• mapping out relationships of dependency
• the creation of co-dependency
• spirituality, bitterness and spite
• hesitation

I'll expand on these in writings to come.

Day 250: Appearances

05062013

I have recently made a new friend in the company of whom I accept and allow myself to see myself in self-honesty. I have noticed this because people like this are extremely rare in my life, and while traveling I have mostly just been keeping up an appearance with the new people I've met. In the company of this person, however, I have been seeing myself in a “new light” as we have discussed our lives very openly and I have seen my appearance “cracking”, as if I was just getting a glimpse of myself underneath who I believe myself to be.

I noticed a new kind of a worry concerning this today: I fear that our interaction will regress, that we will return to our appearances and lose this level of communication that has been very helpful to me. At the same time I realize that I would very much like to crawl back behind my masks because I fear what this kind of interaction might reveal of myself. A window of opportunity like this should not be dismissed, and that's why I need self-forgiveness to support and assist myself to seize it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep up appearances with the people I meet and spend time with because I have wanted to enjoy myself, “have fun” and live a smooth life of no conflict, not realizing that by living as an appearance I am not really here and that I am thus dishonest in everything I do or say, making the interaction with others superficial, shallow and a facade, like actors in a play who believe themselves to be the illusion they portray.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep up appearances with others because I have been afraid to face myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by keeping up appearances I support others to do the same and thus am more likely to only interact with appearances, characters and personalities instead of the actual people behind them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the appearances others keep up by not looking at who they actually are (or might be) within their actions and by not questioning their appearances because I have been afraid of conflict and loneliness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to keep up appearances because I have wanted to socialize and have friends and have believed and perceived that I have to be a certain kind of a personality to gain acceptance from others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to gain acceptance and friendship from others I need to be ignorant of who others actually are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to gain acceptance and friendship from others I need to ignore and hide myself underneath a likeable appearance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I give others only an appearance of myself and not my real self, as ugly as it is, the friendship I receive in return is just as fake as who I am within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that the quality of the friendship is determined by how I live within it – I get what I give – and that in order to have constructive relations with others I need to get down to what is real, to what is actually HERE as the fuck-up that I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I have been regressing back to my personalities when my conversation with X turned back to superficial things after having been about our actual living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with self-judgement when and as I noticed myself regressing back to my “sociable personality” instead of stopping, breathing and directing myself out of this personality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for comfort and stability from my “sociable personality” when and as the conversation has reached a point where I have had nothing to say as I have felt uncomfortable about having nothing to say thinking I should be saying something.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the moments in interaction with others when I have nothing to say, believing and perceiving that another will judge me and think I am not good enough company, not realizing that I do not know what actually causes a line of conversation to “die out” and that whatever the cause I am not alone responsible for an interaction that involves someone in addition to myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself when and as a line of conversation has “died out”, blaming myself for this and making this a point of self-diminishment, when in fact it is no big deal if a conversation ends because then another form of interaction may take place.

[I was unable to finish this text at the time, but I will return to this subject shortly.]

Day 249: Fear of exposing myself through singing

02-032013

Singing at my father's wedding in 2011.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Days 247-248: SF on "doing nothing"

3105-01062013

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compare my current living to the way I lived in my previous circumstances, perceiving and believing myself to be “doing nothing” as compared to what I have done before, not realizing that my past and my present are not comparable because I am not the same person now that I was in the past, which makes the most favourable course of action / way of living subject to change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to the way I have lived my life in my previous circumstances because my previous way of living has made me feel like I'm “doing enough” or “doing my best”, not realizing that my past way of living has been largely self-compromise in terms of what I have been doing and how, and that it has been motivated by fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have felt that I have been “doing enough” only when I have compromised my well-being, in other words, when I have accepted and allowed my fear of failure to consume me to a point where I have worked at the expense of every other aspect of my life, not realizing that this way of living is not sustainable as I seek for stability in an ideal that cannot be achieved – and that my feeling of “having done enough” has thus been based on self-deception and cannot be trusted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the worth of my life is determined by the deeds I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am not the deeds I do but the motivation that moves me to do them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to plan my return to my previous living circumstances according to who I was before I left, not giving myself the chance to even consider reconstructing myself and my life based on who I become as I travel and find a new perspective on what I have been doing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal scenario of my return, where I would come back to my previous responsibilities and duties as an “enlightened” being who would then live out my previous circumstances “perfectly” without making mistakes – not realizing that here I deny myself the chance to reconstruct myself and my life as I hold on to what's familiar and comfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to re-live my past circumstances by repeating the same things over and over again because I have not forgiven myself for my mistakes and would like to live a “perfect” life – not realizing that as I hold onto the past I ignore the present, and that life is too short to re-live every past moment into a flawless one.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to grow attached to my living circumstances so that I had to relocate myself to the other side of the globe to be able to de-attach myself from them and question them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget the possibilities of life as I have grown attached to my routines, lifestyle and worldview.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to grow attached to my routines, lifestyle and worldview because they have brought me a sense of stability and comfort.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe it to be “worthless” to travel and not work while traveling, naming this “doing nothing”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not working when I travel because I perceive and believe only “real work” to contribute anything to the society, not realizing that as I travel I gift myself with time and opportunities to study, learn and focus on self-reflection – all things that will assist and support me to “give back” to the society as they change who I am within my actions which affects the outcome of my actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that only working on something concrete, long-term and instantly visible contributes to the society, not realizing that a lot of “invisible” work is to be done before I am able to see what the best course of action would be and who I need to be within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for focusing on myself as I have perceived and believed this to be “selfish”, not realizing that if I do not focus on working on myself I will remain as a fuck-up and would only damage the reality around me as a consequence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe it to be a “waste of time” to focus on myself when a lot of problems wait to be solved, not realizing that I cannot contribute to the solution of these problems when I am still a part of the “disease” that causes and upholds the problems in the first place.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is necessary to take time for myself to sort myself out in order to actually be of assistance in solving the problems that are present in this reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be restless and impatient because I have wanted to be “ready” to act and be of assistance in solving the problems of the world, not realizing that I am still of very little use because there are a lot of points that I need to sort out in myself before I can participate – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that working on these points within myself is in itself an act of assistance and participation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand the arrogance in believing myself to be “ready” to take action while I ignore the issues within myself that I have not dealt with yet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not live as humility by assessing myself in self-honesty to see what I am actually capable of at the moment and what I need to work on to make progress.

I commit myself to continue working on the most prominent points I have been facing lately – instability, dependency and direction of life – by facing them in my practical living and writing them out when necessary.

I commit myself to explore the possibilities I have for directing my life – the things I do, live out, live within, work on, support and uphold – within and as the realization that I am not tied to places, people, possessions, contacts, surroundings or circumstances in any other than practical ways (for example I am tied to money because that is my access to the world's resources which I need to survive).

I commit myself, when and as I consider different possibilities for directing my life, to consider first and foremost what is best for all and to search for any and all points of self-interest with absolute self-honesty.

I commit myself to show mercy on myself by giving myself time to work on myself by not accepting and allowing guilt, fear and the sense of duty to move me while I travel; I see, realize and understand that this is what has moved me before and that this is not a sustainable source of motivation for a life lived in favor of the well-being of all because I am a part of all and suffer while I move myself by force.

I commit myself to face the moments when I think I “should be doing something” by stopping, breathing and realizing that by allowing this thought to move me I move myself by force because it is not necessity and common sense that is moving me.

I commit myself to continue studying the life of the people around me in these different cultures I live within as I travel as this has felt natural, enjoyable and enriching to me – in other words, by being present in each and every moment this act of studying and learning happens without conscious effort as an outflow of being HERE.