Days 313-315: Singing to impress

12-14092013

I am bothered by a choir audition I went to, which is one of the things I mentioned in my previous post. I was surprised by the fact that I got nervous in the audition, and as I was nervous and my core muscles were trembling, my singing wasn't the best it can be and my voice was shaking a little. There are two points here to look at: a) why I got nervous at all, and b) why I take “failure” so harshly.

After years and years of practice in performing I rarely get as nervous anymore as I did yesterday. Mostly I can trust myself to know what I'm doing and to figure it out if I don't. I wasn't nervous about the audition until I heard that a friend of mine would be in the jury. The fact that there was something personal on the line increased the “stakes”: convincing someone I know personally of my skill, of my value, is more important to me than convincing a roomful of strangers. This is why I would, for example, have my most “special” friends come see me perform something rather than have a hundred strange faces looking at me. This is because my attachment/attraction towards a person makes them appear “more important”: both failure and success feel “bigger”, because I believe I risk losing the appreciation and company of a friend if I fail in their presence, and on the other end I believe that if I succeed in their eyes I will confirm and strengthen the relationship.

This starting point led me to interpreting the reactions of the jury through my fear of failure / desire to succeed. Certain expressions that I interpreted as “judgmental” or “not impressed” are flashing in my mind again and again like snapshots, and I realize that these memory-images in my mind are not an actual photographic evidence of what the situation was in reality. I realize that what I'm carrying with me and holding onto as “signs” of my “failure” are not in fact what happened, but my filtered view of what I perceive and believe to have happened – random moments that I decided to burn into my memory because of what I believe I saw in them.

One reason this bothers me so is that I have to wait for the results of the audition for two weeks. If I would get the results straight away I could use them to determine whether I “succeeded” or “failed”. So instead of finding balance through self-honest self-assessment I torture myself with insecurity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for getting nervous, thinking that I “should have” not been nervous because I've had a lot of practice in performing, not realizing that I am whipping myself for not living up to an ideal I have created for myself – the self-image I would like to be for real – and that when I am goal-oriented I only see the end result and not how to get there, which ends up with me trying to force myself into a mold I don't know how to fit myself into, like trying to shove a cube into a round hole.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate myself for getting nervous, getting disappointed with myself for not living up to my own expectations, not realizing that my expectations were constructed on assumptions that did not take into account all the factors there are to a situation (for example, all the hidden points I am not yet aware of) and that my expectations are thus always bound to be flawed one way or another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect various things out of myself and from others, not realizing that my expectations are never exactly correct – at best they're my best guess – and that as I live according to my expectations I bind myself to inevitable disappointment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that after several years of practice in performing I should have already mastered it, not realizing that because performance in its essence is to reveal myself to others – which constantly reveals new aspects of myself to myself - it is a life-long process that I can probably never during this life be entirely “done” with, let alone in a couple of decades.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the information that my friend would be in the jury, from that moment onwards accepting and allowing my reaction to accumulate into underlying nervousness which reached its peak during the audition.

--

Here I walked the point of my relationship towards this friend in specific SF in private. It helped me see why exactly his presence got me nervous: without going into details I was hiding my experience about this person from myself and thus silently accumulated the energy of that experience until it erupted in an uncontrollable way (nervousness). While writing I realized what it was about and I will now explore my relationship with this person while being self-aware of who I am in his presence.

--

The fact that there was something personal on the line increased the “stakes”: convincing someone I know personally of my skill, of my value, is more important to me than convincing a roomful of strangers. This is why I would, for example, rather have my most “special” friends come see me perform rather than have a hundred strange faces looking at me. This is because my attachment/attraction towards a person makes them appear “more important”: both failure and success feel “bigger”, because I believe I risk losing the appreciation and company of a friend if I fail in their presence, and on the other end I believe that if I succeed in their eyes I will confirm and strengthen the relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “shine” in the eyes of another as I have believed and perceived that by doing so I will “confirm” our friendship – that the other will not want to walk away from me if I convince him/her that I am “good enough”.

Now, this point intrigues me. It keeps on reappearing in different circumstances and in different shapes and sizes, but the base point is the same: “Do not abandon me. Please don't leave me. Please tell me I'm alright.” I keep returning to this point because I am not sure where it comes from. There are no major events of abandonment in my childhood and I had a very supportive family, and all that I can think of are events from later on in my life. When I was around 10 years old all of my friends turned their backs on me because I was “weird” (I was somehow behaving “out of line”) and I took this sudden loneliness really harshly. I used this event and the emotional pain that I experienced then as a source for my upcoming depression, anxiety and introversion. The thing that eludes me is: how did I decide to start begging for acceptance through my skills and traits? That's not the reason I started having friends again later on. I didn't somehow enchant the people who became my friends: we just “ended up” together because in a school environment you don't really have much choice.

So what I'm asking of myself is to look at my past and search for events where I would have felt accepted because of a skill, trait or quality of mine that I got positive feedback of. I find this essential because through this belief that I can convince others to like me I have created a survival mechanism of “pulling the tricks” to avoid facing my fear of “losing” another person – and my dependency/attraction towards the other. Instead of asking myself: “hang on, why do I react to the possibility of this person not being present in my life?” I instantly believe and validate my fear and my “need” for this person to be around.

Day 312: Hiding self-judgement under a positive mantra

11092013

Lately I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I have “failed” or “not done well enough” on some things. On a conscious level I've been thinking “I'm doing alright”, “that wasn't too bad”, “it doesn't matter that I [made a mistake]” - but in my secret mind on an unconscious level my experience has been “I'm not good enough.”

Today I saw how all these tiny little moments have accumulated up to a state of being where I'm physically in pain and do not want to even try doing anything of relevance and rather just keep myself entertained with useless stuff. I am living within and as the statement: “I won't succeed anyway.” I realized that I have created this state of being out of small moments of hidden self-judgement.

I can see how easy it would be to get stuck into this kind of a state of being, and that to me explains a great deal about people who become passivated. Why get off the couch if making an effort is never enough? Here I miss the fact that I am the one setting the measure of “enough” – which means that I can in fact change it.

I know that I've been doing reasonably well in my tasks lately, and not least because I'm allowing myself decent rest for the first time in at least a year. But the guilt is there. I'm not saying that guilt is entirely a bad thing – if nothing else, it serves as a reminder of things I would actually need to be doing sooner or later – but combined with self-judgement it's quite deadly.

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Here I did specific self-forgiveness and commitments on each one of the points where I had been judging myself, and I will keep it private for now. Writing out the commitments I mapped out all of the points that have been "bubbling under" for the past couple of weeks, and in the posts to come I will be opening them up in more detail. A general SF statement from today sums it up:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to cover up my self-judgement with a mantra that says “I'm OK”/”it's OK”, thinking this thought over and over again, not realizing that I am suppressing my actual experience of not being OK with myself by trying to override it with “positive thinking” and thus ignoring the actual issue.

It's quite interesting to see this because I have thought that I am "the kind of a person" who DOESN'T do this kind of positive thinking -mantra. When I laid out the multitude of situations from the past few weeks in front of me, the evidence was pretty hard to deny, lol. So it will be interesting to walk through this point.

Day 311: Leadership - passing the power

09092013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I'll continue with this in posts to come.

Day 310: Dissolving a stereotype

06092013

Yesterday I was working in the bar and close to our closing time a couple of my new class mates from university walked in. While I was talking with them and observing their behavior in the bar I realized something about these people, and about myself.

I'll name these two girls A and B. For the past couple of weeks that I've been hanging out with them I've observed A to be a bit tense and nervous, but she seems active, and she has been one of the most eager to go out to party. B has appeared very fearful to me, kind of fidgety, with her eyes darting around as if she's not sure whether my look for instance (or anything in her environment) is friendly or hostile.

When they came to the bar yesterday they were both very drunk, and a lot started to make sense. A, who had been most eager to go party, was really loud and expressive when she was drunk – and I realized that she is probably a very expressive person who just believes she cannot do it without alcohol in her system. And B, while drunk, was a bit less fidgety, and came across as very warm and friendly when her guard was lowered.

What I realized was that with these kind of people I have usually been influenced by prejudice. I have judged their need to get intoxicated and I have labeled them into a specific kind of a stereotype (“pissikset” in finnish, the archetype of a superficial teenage girl). I have not wanted to be in contact with these kinds of people and I have very effectively pushed them out of my life. This time around when I began university I knew that I would be facing all kinds of people and my approach was different than usual – I wasn't prepared for anything specific, I just knew that I wanted to get to know all kinds of new people that I came across because university is a great place for doing that. Yesterday I realized that I had not labeled these people into that superficial stereotype: to me they were just my classmates. And so I was able to actually see them and embrace them because I wasn't separating them from myself with a made-up boundary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blind myself from seeing people for who they actually are (how they are actually moving in this reality without my filtered interpretation of it) by believing and perceiving them to be “different” from me and thus never seeing them as one with and equal to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear seeing other people as one with and equal to me because it would require me to see myself in them, including the things that I judge, dislike, hate, resent or despise in others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear seeing myself as one with and equal to people who believe they need alcohol/drugs to be able to express themselves without limitations, because I have been like this myself and haven't forgiven myself for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear seeing myself as one with and equal to people who suppress and limit their self-expression because I am struggling with the same issues myself, just in different ways, and because “freedom of expression” is a defining factor in my personality/ego and admitting that I am in fact limited in my self-expression would shatter my ego.*

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself apart from people who are limited in their self-expression by adopting the role of someone above them – “the one who is NOT limited in their self-expression” – not realizing that this is just another personality I use to feel good about myself.*

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself as insecure to others who are insecure as I fear giving up my position of dominance, not realizing that exposing myself to another might actually be of support to the other when upholding my appearance and keeping a distance most certainly will not.

I commit myself to investigate and explore how exposing my “weaknesses” to others would act as support and assistance for others as well as for myself.

I commit myself to seek for the “good” in other people – their true potential – especially in those who I dislike, despise, resent, hate and/or judge.

I commit myself to expect from other people nothing but their utmost potential, as I have seen how this approach to others actually brings out the best in them; when and as I live within the experience “you are a small push away from the best you can be” I support the other to make that push and live as the best they can be.

I commit myself to investigate the ego and personality points mentioned above.*

Day 309: Using “time” as an excuse not to face things

05092013

Continuing with a realization from yesterday.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse not to face things I have a resentment towards.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that “not having time” is the real reason I “cannot” do the things I resent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be dishonest with myself about the resentment I feel and believe it to be justified to escape the things I resent because I “don't have time”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I am asked to do something I resent, to react to my resentment by saying “I don't have time”, refusing to have anything to do with it, expecting people to believe my excuse and to leave me alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent a request to arrange a meeting to a group because I assume this group to not have any substance in their meetings – which I do not actually know as I have never been present – using “not having time” as an excuse with which to escape the situation and avoid voicing my disagreement about the group.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse to escape a situation I fear will turn into conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent a request to meet a person because I assume this person to want to see me out of addiction/dependency, thus using “not having time” as an excuse to escape having to communicate my doubts about this person's behavior to the person directly.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse not to communicate in self-honesty because I fear it will lead to conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent a request to arrange an event when at a meeting because I did not expect to be handed tasks and responsibilities when I went to the meeting – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to agree to be in the organizing committee even though I knew I cannot take any more tasks or responsibilities due to my studies, as I did not want to tell the group directly that there's something more important to me at the moment and rather came up with a “back gate”, a plan B where I can later tell them indirectly that I can no longer participate because “I don't have time”.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that “not having time” is a valid reason to drop out of projects mid-way and trust that others will thus not hold a grudge against me – that I will through this avoid conflict.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent attending any events organized by a group because I perceive the events to be based on escapism and entertainment, thus feeling relieved when I have a solid excuse not to participate (“I don't have time” because of studying) because with this excuse I can avoid voicing my point of view which I fear will trigger conflict.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to wait around for an excuse which will “save me” from doing things I don't want to do as I have not wanted to communicate directly and face the conflict that it might possibly arouse.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to direct myself and my life by living in a compromise until something/someone comes up to “save me”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resentment towards chatting online with a person who is asking for my help because I have felt like chatting with him is wearing me out, as if I was carrying the mantle of “authority” or an “educator” during our discussions and thus draining myself by upholding a “higher” position, therefore reacting to his attempts to contact me by thinking “not again”, “I don't have time for this” and sometimes ignoring his attempts.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make these discussions tiring for myself by not wanting to explain myself many times (refining and simplifying my words time after time so that the other would understand) as I have believed and perceived that my effort is in vain as our discussions “lead nowhere” and that the other is “not getting it”, not realizing that I do not see the actual process he is going through and thus cannot really make an assessment of whether he is “getting it” or not – and that through this process of explaining, refining and simplifying – which requires great effort from me – I am actually learning A LOT precisely because it is painful, uncomfortable and requires me to push over and over again.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent discussing with this person because it requires me to step out of my comfort zone and to justify avoiding this person by thinking “I don't have time”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use “not having time” as an excuse to avoid facing conflict and stepping out of my comfort zone.

When and as I see myself using the phrase “I don't have time for X” I stop, I breathe and I ask myself if this is really true – if in fact my schedule is full - or if I am just saying this to avoid doing something. I ask myself: why do I not want to do X? I investigate the point (in writing if necessary) and I release it with self-forgiveness and breathing. I then proceed within and as the realization that only by stepping out of my comfort zone and going towards that which I resent I expand myself and my reality.

I commit myself to investigate my fear of conflict and how it links to practical application (or the lack of it).

As I see, realize and understand that time alone is not a real reason to do or not to do things – because schedules can always be rearranged as they are not “set in stone” but created in our conceptual realities – I commit myself to no longer use and present “not having time” as a reason for doing/not doing things but to seek for the real reason why I will/won't rearrange my schedule for something/someone and to communicate this actual reason to the ones involved.

To support the commitment above, I commit myself to communicate my actual reason for “not having time” even when/as/if I am not specifically asked for a reason, as I see, realize and understand that people have a tendency to assume a reason and to believe their assumption in complete silence – which, if not actively corrected right away, may have consequences in the long run. In other words: I commit myself to not accept and allow myself to use this “silent agreement” to avoid communicating the things I fear voicing.

Days 307-308: Stolen time

03-04092013

I'm totally stealing ALL your precious moments! ... oh, but this is just a clock.

Recently my schedule has filled up explosively due to university, work, social life, organizations and recreational activities, and I am getting increasingly anxious. I see myself thinking of others as “time thieves” when they seek for my attention/time/effort and I easily get frustrated with others because I'm thinking “I don't have time for this!”, yet I don't actually do anything about it – I never address the fact that I am busy but rather try to participate in everything out of obligation. I end up not finishing my tasks because after all the struggling with the “time thieves” I am too exhausted to properly utilize the time that remains of my day and rather just indulge in entertainment to “recharge”.

But in reality the schedule seems much worse than it actually is, and a lot of the things I have taken into my life are flexible and even removable if that's what's required. When I take one day at a time, one activity at a time, one moment at a time I see that I actually have time quite plentifully, especially because of the flexibility of things. So this is about my perspective as well as feeling obligated to participate. I am intimidated by my calendar stretching to weeks and months ahead when I should be focusing on the NOW.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at my schedule and perceive it to be “full”, flipping through the pages of my calendar and getting intimidated by the amount of work I have to get done in a short span of time – not realizing that in between this moment and (for example) the moment I get my last exam of this year done are countless of inhales and exhales, countless of moments of breath when I can little by little through consistency work my way towards getting my workload done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my workload seem bigger than it is by thinking about how little I get done each day, not realizing that that little in time accumulates up to big results.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with frustration to people I perceive to be “demanding” for my time, effort and attention, blaming them for “stealing my time”, not realizing that I am the one who chooses how to “spend” my time – not them – and that it is thus my responsibility to make sure that I have enough time to complete my tasks.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not refuse a person requesting for my time because I have not wanted to insult them – I have wanted to avoid conflict – I have not wanted to tell another that I perceive them to not be “worthy” of my time at the moment – that I have something “more important” to do; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to please and to help others because if I wouldn't they might react, feel bad and blame their reaction on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to neglect my tasks and responsibilities because I have feared being self-honest with others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I spend my time on others out of obligation I am living within the experience “I don't want to be here” - and when I'm still there even though I don't want to I create friction and strain within myself as I am “pulled” to another direction that I am walking in, thus making myself more exhausted than I would be after simply being there and moving myself within and as breath – thus requiring a “recharge” by pumping myself with energy through entertainment (media, food, people, excess sleep) to be able to function again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will “run out of time” - that my life will not be enough for all the things I want to / should get done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time can be “stolen” - that time is a resource I have stacked in a vault somewhere – not realizing that time is a measurement for the movement of matter, not matter itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time is something that I “have” or “possess” - “I don't have time for this”, “I'm wasting my time”, “my time is precious” - not realizing that I do not “have” time because as movement and Life I am time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that time is the relationship between that which exists and how it moves – and that time itself doesn't really exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I think “I don't have time for X” what I mean by it is that I don't want to move to the direction of X – I don't want to rearrange my life in such a way that would allow me to move to X.

(For example, I could say “I don't have time to cook”, when in fact it is just about me not wanting to rearrange my other activities so that I could cook, usually because it feels like too much of a burden.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that eventually I will run out of time – when I die – and that it is the inevitability of the loss of all time that scares me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my “time” (life) will run out before I've completed everything that I want/need/desire to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about gathering up experiences into a “perfect life story” which I could after this Life look back on to feel successful and good about myself – I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about how much I live but about how I live.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “successfulness” of my life is not measured in stories I gather into my mind but in each and every breath because the stories do not exist in the NOW - only breath does.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “success” of my studying is not measured in how fast I get my degree but in how effectively I learn.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel that in my life I am in a hurry, as if I was running somewhere, wanting to already be 5 years from here when I'd have my degree and could “get on” with my life – not realizing that the 5 years ahead of me are crucial concerning my future and that I should not try to “fast forward” them, but instead slow down and live each and every moment of these years within and as breath.

--

I also did some private SF on a specific "time thief", and while doing it I realized that most of these cases are actually not about time at all, but about a resentment I feel towards the "time thief", be it a person, activity or an organization. In this particular case the resentment was about a person with whom I can't seem to be able to bring any substance into our interaction. So here the issue was apparently about time - "wasting my time" on something that bears no fruit - but underneath that it was actually about me wanting to escape a person in the presence of whom I felt like I couldn't direct myself, which I then covered up by thinking "I don't have time". I think I need to open this point up a little more later.

--

I commit myself to slow myself down in breath to focus on one task at a time within and as the realization that if my focus is on the things I have to get done in the future I will half-ass what I'm doing NOW.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to get my tasks done properly by making myself a realistic schedule which also allows me space to rest.

I commit myself to focus primarily on my studies and the activities that directly support my studies, and only focus on other things when/as/if there is time left for other things.

When and as I get frustrated with something/someone that I perceive to be “stealing my time” - I stop and I breathe. I realize that I am blaming my own experience of anxiety on the other and abdicating my responsibility for managing my own life. I realize I am driven by the fear of “running out of time” (death) and the fear of failure, which have nothing to do with the “time thief”. I release the blame with self-forgiveness and breathing, and I do the same with my anxiety and fears by grounding myself in breath and reminding myself I am HERE. I check myself for any resentment towards the “time thief” which I might be justifying with “not having time”. I ask myself why I resent spending time on the “time thief” keeping in mind that time is most likely not the actual issue. I direct myself within and as the realization that I will learn the most where I feel uncomfortable.

Day 306: How dare you!

02092013

Lately I've been going through the point of reacting with anger to seeing injustice, ignorance or some form of wrong-doing. This point arose when I encountered a homeless man on the street and reacted to the behavior of the other people that were present. A friend gave me some perspective on what happens within that moment of reaction and I found it really helpful.

Just now I faced this point again within a different context, and because it happened to fit this topic precisely I figured I might as well just write it out immediately. Quite cool, huh!

Me and the other administrators at our theatre have been trying to arrange a meeting with one of the city officials to negotiate the terms under which we operate in the facilities we are using. For some years now there has been an ongoing passive-aggressive conflict between this specific city official and the chairman of our theatre group. Our chairman has spoken of this official with heavily emotional words due to her frustration, and while I have tried to keep a neutral position to this person and this mess we are trying to solve – because I simply do not know enough of it and have never even met this official - some of our chairman's words have gotten to me and I have in fact adopted some of her negativity. The “evidence” for her claims has been “convincing” enough for me to believe her interpretation of the situation.

I noticed this just now when I was checking on the details of the meeting we had agreed for tomorrow and found out that the official had to cancel the meeting and now suggested another date and time. I reacted by saying: “I knew it!” This meaning that I had already assumed this official to be disrespectful and inconsiderate towards us based on what I have seen and heard of her actions and attitude so far. There's six of us trying to fit our schedules with hers, and she won't even let us know until we call her the last minute?! That's fucking rude!

But I realized while I was huffing and puffing and swearing in my anger that I was doing it again: I already had an image / assumption about who this city official is based on what I have heard of her in the past; I was interpreting the happenings according to my image/assumption of her; I reacted according to my interpretation; I found my reaction justified; and thus, I held onto my reaction and just wanted to express my anger instead of finding a solution to what I perceived to be “wrong”/unjust (another being inconsiderate).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build an image into my mind of a person I have never even interacted with based on what other people have told me about her and my following interpretations of what her influence might have been on actual events/happenings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the justifications others have given for their emotional reactions towards this person, accepting and allowing them to react and be emotional as I have believed that it is enough if I do not react – not realizing that if there's even one person within the group who is allowed to remain angry it will influence the entire group unless we're all stable – which we are not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret each new “story” I have heard of this person throughout the years according to what I have heard of her in the past, remembering the anger of others, believing and perceiving that I'm looking at a chain of unjust events when in fact I do not know what actually happened in the past, nor what happened in the present; I do not know who this person is and the consistent anger of others is not “evidence” of this person's unjust nature.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be influenced by another's consistent anger/negativity/frustration by creating a belief that her anger is justified.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though what I see here may actually have been a chain of unjust events, the reactions these events have triggered in others are still not justifiable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I do not know why this person canceled the meeting – there's a million reasons why one would have to cancel an appointment at the last minute.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume that this person canceled the meeting out of ill will, spite and malice based who I believe her to be – who she is as an image in my mind – not realizing that I have seen no actual indication of ill will, spite or malice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that second-hand information is never fully reliable no matter how much I would like to trust its source.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to further amplify my reaction of anger by thinking “I am very busy – I went through all this trouble to fit this into my schedule – it will be SO HARD to arrange another appointment – AAAAAA that's so fucking rude of her!” - blaming my own hardship* of arranging a schedule on another.

* A heaviness which I create myself and which doesn't actually exist in the physical reality outside of my conceptual reality.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified to blame a person I have defined as “disrespectful”, “unjust” and “ignorant” (blame-worthy) for my self-created hardship.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that arranging a schedule is difficult, burdensome, hard and demanding and that it is a “big” task – not realizing that people's lives constantly flow and fluctuate and change and that schedules must follow this nature of living – and that arranging a schedule is thus nothing but taking the building blocks of your life and putting them in an order that works best for all.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold onto a schedule that seems to work best for me, not taking into consideration that when there are other people involved I must find an arrangement that works best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger when and as I heard about the meeting being canceled because I assumed the meeting to have been canceled out of malice, not realizing that my interpretation of what's happening is not based on facts gathered NOW, in the present moment, but on images, stories and memories from the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is unfair and untrue to evaluate a person based on stories and memories from the past, as I then do not take into consideration who that person is NOW – and that NOW is all that actually matters in time and space as Life is but an ongoing NOW-moment; the past and present do not exist anymore/yet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I know who a person is even though I have never interacted with this person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give this person a chance to show me who she is; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself a chance to see who this person is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my reaction of anger by thinking “she is doing wrong” - not realizing that if she indeed is doing something that is not best for all, getting angry about it is not going to change anything.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider what I can do to find a solution for a situation where a lot of people are trying to fit their schedules together and instead lock myself into anger and blame one of these people for “making it difficult” - not realizing that if I experience arranging (this) appointment a “burden” it is my creation and thus my responsibility.

When and as I meet this person face to face, I commit myself to be aware of the “baggage” of negativity that I have adopted from others concerning her; and I commit myself to look at who she actually is, allowing no bullshit (assumptions, filters, guesswork, hostility, negativity) from myself.

I commit myself to check myself for any want/need/desire to be "above" this person as this approach through arrogance is nothing but a defense mechanism.

I commit myself to ask myself why I fear this person.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear this person based on the stories I have heard of her, not realizing that if she were in fact to abuse her position of authority and power as the stories tell, it would simply mean the end of our theatre as it is at the moment - not the end of the world, that is - and that even that moment of destruction would have many opportunities and open doors.

When and as I meet this person face to face, I commit myself to stop, breathe and stabilize myself into my physical body. I will engage in eye contact with her and if possible, seek for a physical connection point as well (i.e. handshake). I will expect nothing but the best of her and I will allow her to unravel as she will. I will live as an example by being self-honest, expressive and kind, yet allowing no bullshit from her or anyone else.

I commit myself to seek an understanding of this person as one with and equal to me by placing myself "in her shoes".

--

On a more general scale.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger when and as I see something I perceive and believe to be “unjust”, “ignorant” or “wrong” - within this reaction stating “this is not what I want MY world to be!” - thus manifesting my helplessness, worry and distress through anger, blaming another for “making” my world a bad place, not realizing that the actual cause of a human being acting “unjust”, “ignorant” or “wrong” is not in the individual alone but in all of society, in all its participants and its structures.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when I see another acting “unjust”, “ignorant” or “wrong”, blaming the other for ruining my reality, not realizing that who the other is within their “unjust”/”ignorant”/”wrong” expression is a manifestation of what the society and the world is – and thus also an expression of who I am, as I am a part of this society/world.

Therefore, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is not “the other” who is ruining my reality but all of us combined, and that it is our responsiblity to assist and support each other to correct what we can.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for their mistakes instead of supporting and assisting them to see their mistake and correct their behavior - and/or everyone making the same mistake by studying and addressing the actual cause of the misbehavior and living as an example of self-direction.

I commit myself to study the world I live in - my world! our world! - in order to see, realize and understand the reasons behind the current manifestations of injustice and ignorance so that I may be able to contribute to the solution to these issues.

When and as I see myself reacting with anger to an act of injustice or ignorance - I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am passing the blame for what the world is at the moment onto another person, when in fact we are all responsible for such manifestations of a dysfunctional world. I breathe and I check myself for similar behavior: would I act in a similar way and why? I remind myself that I do not know the exact reasons behind this particular act other than it most likely being connected to fear on some level. I realize that my anger is not justified, and I remind myself that acting through anger will only serve my ego, as I would be trying to enforce "correct behavior" to make my world appear "OK" again. I let go of my anger with self-forgiveness and breathing*. When and as my anger has dissolved I have another look at the situation to see what actually happened - not what I believe to have happened - and I continue with the situation according to common sense, self-honesty and what is best for all.

*If I fail at letting go of the anger in the moment of breath, I commit myself to continue writing about this point until it is done.