Days 131-132: Stress and impatience

30-31012013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 129: Stress, ideals and deadlines

Day 130: Stress and disempowerment

A thing stopping me from releasing stress is the fact that I stress about being stressed. So I'm stating “I don't want to be stressed” when I am stressed, and here I separate myself from myself and my experience as I refuse to face myself as one and equal to stress and try to override it with something - convincing myself with encouraging words, pushing myself by force - whatever works.

So what's stress? Tension, projecting to the future, cross-referencing to the past, imagined “worst-case-scenarios” and “what-if's”. So it's physical muscle tension and unnecessary mind processes. These are quite solvable, now aren't they? Tension -> relaxation by breathing and slowing down; mind processes -> stopping participation, investigating and forgiving. From the resulting state I will be able to change my behavior and no longer live as the stress character.

As I've been looking at the character creation process I've realized that characters are a compilation of habits, coping mechanisms, survival mechanisms, behavioral patterns and the such. This means that as I stress I already live as such a predetermined compilation of habits, mechanisms and patterns – I live as the stress character. I've previously thought of characters as masks that I pull on in front of others, not realizing that I might be trying to fool myself too with masks while I am alone; and I've been so deep within within this stress character and my thought participation that I have been unable to see this, but now that I do I feel like there's a release – it's cool, this too is a character, I know how to deal with this. No need to stress about it.

The reason I've been stressed about being stressed is that I would like to be “ready” already – I am impatient with myself and don't realize that this 23 years of accumulated shit is way beyond extensive and will not disappear in a heartbeat. So now I've realized that for me stress is an issue; cool, now be prepared to deal with it for a looong time. Lol.

And so as I stress about being stressed I get agitated (“why am I not transcending already?!”) and cannot see the actual points clearly. My problem for the past few days has been that I am unable to see what's going on, what my patterns are, where do I fall – and this is simply because I am to far in my meta-stress (lol) that I'm not HERE within and as breath investigating myself in real time. So I need to slow down and stop meta-stressing to actually make some progress. It's cool, I have a lifetime ahead of me.

Thus, I commit myself to slow down with the support and assistance of breath within the realization that as I slow down I assist and support myself to be HERE and face myself as I am, as not slowing down and remaining within my energy possession of meta-stress/frustration/impatience will only take me further away from HERE and deeper into the loops of the mind.

When and as I notice myself going into stress, I stop, I breathe and I check myself for impatience, expectations and/or ideals and the resulting frustration. If there is impatience/frustration, I realize I am not stressing about what it is I am doing but about the experience of stress itself, and I forgive myself for this, let the experience go and when/as I am stable within myself within/as breath, return to what I was doing. If there is no impatience/frustration, I further investigate my experience and the situation.

--

For now the experience of stress has faded, and I will continue writing about it when/as/if it returns.

Day 130: Stress and disempowerment

29012013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 129: Stress, ideals and deadlines

I've been examining the experience of stress that has been accumulating for a couple of weeks, and I've noticed how it's affected my overall experience and state of being. I feel smaller, weaker and more fearful – and this disgusts me, which is a relevant point in itself.

Today as I've been working my way through these projects I have reacted very easily to mistakes and/or accidents. My thought has been: “fuck, I screwed this up, now I have to fix it and that will waste time!” This reaction comes from the same state of powerlessness I have lived within and as – from smallness, weakness and fearfulness.

So if I look at it from a non-emotional/non-judgemental standpoint, what are the actual disadvantages of being in this small, weak and fearful state? Well, first off, I don't really connect with people because for some reason I am constantly running away from contact – I have noticed myself not really standing within myself and avoiding eye contact with others, or being with others but not really encountering any of them. Not allowing myself to live as a social being I deny myself the support and assistance I could get from the company of others. Secondly, I think this is a symptom of the disempowerment I glanced at yesterday.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to collapse within myself when/as I feel stressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stand within and as myself when/as I have been stressed and instead collapse and not carry myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to hide from others when/as I have been stressed, not realizing I am actually trying to hide from myself, not wanting to face myself as stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not want to face myself as stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing myself as stress because it would mean I would no longer be able to justify my self-abuse and would have to change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not want to face myself as stress because I would then have to face the reasons of my stress.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent myself as the consequences of being stressed (smallness, weakness, fearfulness), not wanting to be who I accept and allow myself to be, within the self-rejection separating myself from myself and stating myself to be powerless to change myself as I would rather just run away.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am powerless to change myself because I would rather do that than face myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I am powerless to change because I have not faced myself and do not know what's wrong and thus believe there's nothing I can do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to confuse “not knowing what to do” to mean the same as “not being able to do”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent myself as the consequences of being stressed (smallness, weakness, fearfulness) because I have set myself a standard where I am strong, independent, powerful, radiant, social and friendly.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive these qualities as “more than” (strong, independent, powerful, radiant, social and friendly) as I have not seen myself as one and equal to these qualities as self-expression.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the other qualities as “less than” (smallness, weakness, fearfulness) as I have not seen myself as one and equal to them as being able to direct myself, my experience and my self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with resentment when I do not fulfill my ideals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to loathe, despise, resent, reject, refuse, put down, belittle, judge, criticize and pity myself when/as I have not fulfilled my ideals or met my standards.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as self-expectations.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself standards I must meet in order to “be enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to do something / be something “to be enough”, not realizing there is no such thing as “enough” as there is no one to judge, evaluate or assess me – that there is only self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to throughout my life live as less than who I am.

--

Where the heck does this originate? Should I be looking more at my childhood? Is it just a coincidence – that as a child I reacted to adversity with submission instead of dominance – passiveness instead of aggression – turning inwards instead of exploding outwards – was I a clean slate in birth? Did I learn to cope through submissiveness at home, before school, from my family environment? Is that it?

I think I need to ask my mother about my childhood because I simply don't remember. Or maybe I'm not looking closely enough.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to making mistakes with frustration and self-blame.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to work from the starting point of fear and thus be in a reactive and tense state to begin with and then react to the smallest adversity and take the adversity as an excuse to vent all of my frustration out on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not slow myself down and stabilize myself before I start working, and instead just push through resistance and exhaustion because “I have to keep moving or I will not get this done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize it is destructive to force myself to work.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize I am more prone to making mistakes when I work from the starting point of fear because then I am not really here interacting with what I'm working on and grow tense and distracted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I take the time and effort to actually slow myself down and stabilize myself before I start working on a task I save time and effort as I make less mistakes and work more efficiently as I am more relaxed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive myself to be powerless to affect my stressful work situation and thus react with “I told you so!” every time I make a mistake, taking the mistake as evidence of my powerlessness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the mistake as a sign of my disability to direct the situation, not realizing that even though at the moment of making the mistake I am not living up to my full potential, I am able and responsible in the next moment to learn from my mistakes and choose to direct myself according to what I've learned – and that that “next moment” is already here but I'm wasting it on self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waste time on self-judgement when I could already be forgiving myself and moving forward.

--

A quote from yesterday: “I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disempower myself by creating resistance towards the project because of preconceived ideas.”

It's as if I'm constantly pushing through some really heavy veil of resistance, like everything I'm doing or trying to do is really burdensome and not good enough by any standards. I move because I have to – not because I'd really want to or be motivated to. By thinking this is something I “have to” do I create a resistance towards it and thus make it heavier for myself.

So why is it something I “have to” do? Isn't it fun to do this stuff? Sewing and making music and painting and all kinds of fun stuff I enjoy very much. There's various points at play here. Firstly, the schedule creates stress – or rather I create stress by looking at the schedule. Secondly, I am busy with work and other stuff and don't really have enough time and resources to get this done. Thirdly, my priorities have changed and I have other things I would rather do than all these funzies.

Why won't I just relax? If the case is that I have promised to do this and am willing to do this, why not just relax, let the schedule be what it is and enjoy myself as I do this fun stuff, for the first and last time in a while? Why stress about the schedule, when I will finish what I finish and that which I don't, I don't. I cannot know what that is until I'm at that moment in time.

So as opposed to these heavy duties there are others that are apparently “lighter”, because they are things I would like to do. But whatever I do, I simply do. In work there is only actions, and the actions themselves are pleasurable, no matter what they are. So why would it matter what I'm doing, especially if I know this to be temporary?

I will not be judged according to how well I perform this task/project. It will be one camel's fart in the desert and shortly forgotten – the only thing that matters is how I carry myself through it. I will not accept and allow myself to abuse myself through life and work – I realize this is life and movement like any other – I carry myself within, as and through this as myself uncompromised considering that which is best for all, as that which is best for all is best for myself as well. I carry my responsibility as a participant of this project, but I refuse to compromise and diminish myself for it. I cannot live thinking “I will start living when I'm done with this in a couple of months” when life is HERE – I could die any second – and that's why the current moment is all that really matters. I've got to live for myself now – no more compromising.

Now I rest, tomorrow I continue.

Day 129: Stress, ideals and deadlines

28012013

I am feeling stuck. I have these series I'm writing but I don't seem to be getting the hang of any of them today – and this is because I haven't been facing any of them today. I should be writing about what I'm facing, so it's no big deal – just leave the series and return when/if it's time to do so.

So what am I facing?

Well, fuck. Stress again.

It's theatre, work and studying that don't go well hand in hand. I am really stressed about theatre and its schedules because they are increasingly tight and I fear I will not get everything done in time – or that if I do, it will consume all of my time and effort. This stress is new as it was created after some new stress factors concerning the schedule arose. I'm more tight on time, budget and material than I thought I was, and this is just a hobby – I have other stuff I want to do!

This is where I see I have been living contrary to myself. I have promised to do projects half-heartedly, and now I have to finish them. So when I remove the stress, all that is left is organizing, recruiting more hands and getting the job done.

But what do I stress about?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about this theatre project and all that I have to do for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not finish the music.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not finish the costumes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will not finish the scenography.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will have to rush with my work and that the end result of the music, costumes and scenography will not be up to my standards - “not good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not accept the fact that the result will be what it will be, whether it has anything to do with my perfected visions or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the end result is a sum of each and every moment before the moment where the job is declared “finished” - and that these “finishing moments” as deadlines are chosen arbitrarily and are in fact just moments like any other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the “finishing moment” because it resembles death – “that's it, hands off, this is what you'll be judged upon” – not realizing that nothing actually ends with this moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I judge myself at the “finishing moment” based on how close I get to the preconceived idea/vision of the result, and that the judgement of others has nothing to do with this unless it serves as a validator for my self-judgement – and that even then it's just a trigger and I myself am the cause.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to have a “vision” of what the result is going to be like and work according to this preconceived idea, not allowing myself to derail and do things differently if the situation so demands.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards doing things contrary to my original plans/vision/idea and thus make it harder for myself to make any progress within the project.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disempower myself by creating resistance towards the project because of preconceived ideas.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at all the work I have left and think “whoa, there's so much work left”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at all the work I have done so far and think “shit, I have only gotten so little done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make the work load seem bigger than it is by looking at it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at and assess my work load based on what is actually here and what is necessary to be done and instead look at it through fear and self-belittlement where everything I've done seems less than it is and everything that's not yet done seems more than it is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe this work load to be too much for me as I have looked at it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disempower myself to work on this task by looking at everything related to it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this – or any – work load is always manageable through delegating, organizing and prioritizing tasks; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make myself blind to this practical facet of organizing work as I have not honestly looked at my work load but always perceived it through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this work load is what it is, and to solve the situation I need to look at what is necessary to be done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider “pushing myself harder” to be a solution, not realizing the self-compromise will bear its consequences on both me and the work I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear I will be judged as “not good enough” if I do not complete these tasks according to the idea I have set for myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react whenever I am rushed with a certain task and take it personally when in fact it is just the other person expressing their concern over some aspect of the project, not a comment or an evaluation on me personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive myself to be “not qualified” to tackle “so much work” and thus project that self-definition back to me through other people as perceived judgement, not realizing this is all self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to prove my value through the work I do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I prove my value by doing a lot of work, as this is what I learned as a child by looking at my environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that neither working nor not working holds any kind of a value, be it positive or negative – that working in itself is not good or bad, and that not working in itself is not good or bad.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the equation: work = positive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize I have value whether I work or not, and that the amount of my worth is not fixed to the amount of work I do or don't do – that my value or worth is in fact always the same and that it is the same as everyone's.

I am struggling with intense neck pain and a resulting migraine, which shows me just how extensive this point is and how much I've allowed it to accumulate. I will continue walking this point daily in writing as it is a most necessary self-support while I work for this project.

I commit myself to no longer accept and allow this stress to accumulate, and I will do this by writing about it every day while it lasts for as long as it takes for it to dissipate.

I commit myself to treat myself with kindness and care.

I commit myself to go through my work load to see what tasks I could give for others to complete and then assign these tasks to others.

Days 127-128: Relationship formats, part 1

26-27012013

Mostly relationships between people are simplifiable to set relationship formats. There's your typical mother-son, mother-daughter, father-son, father-daughter, sister-sister, brother-brother, sister-brother, best friend, second best friend, acquaintance, enemy, nemesis, boyfriend, girlfriend, husband-wife, aunt, uncle, grandparent-grandchild, teacher-student, senior-junior, employer-employee – all of this is characterizable – all of this can be broken down to patterns of behavior, thought, expectations, images, beliefs, assumptions – a social code that's created, upheld and taught to new generations by the society as all of us. What's wrong with this, then? Isn't this how things go? If this is how things are done now, doesn't it mean this is the best solution? And who am I to point fingers at others and tell them their relationships are all wrong and patterned and - executed instead of lived?

Well, I don't. Instead I'm looking at myself and seeing that I have lived according to these learned relationship formats – and that I will no longer accept any of that, because living according to a ready mindset limits me from exploring the possibilities that are actually here.

I realized that I have defined these relationship formats for myself in terms of how to be with certain people – and that I have an applicable pattern for every encounter sitting at the back of my mind ready to be utilized. They are a survival mechanism that stops me from expanding beyond my comfort zone and becoming more than I am at the moment, and that which I am at the moment isn't the best I can be. I will not accept and allow myself to live as less than my full potential, even though the road there is rocky.

So I will now walk these relationship formats as I face them in my practical living and I will live myself out of them. Let's see how this goes. Here I am not necessarily talking of specific people, but going through the patterns according to which I have interacted with different people in my life.

Part 1: Landlord

The one who borrows me a space between a roof and some walls in exchange for money. I am to keep the space in good condition, to maintain it, and to carry my responsibility over the damage I might do to the property. This relationship is purely business, and I am at a lower status.

Status: lower

Intimacy: none

Bargain: money for space

Gain: my own space

Loss: money

Risk: damaging another's property – loss of more money

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my landlord(s) because our relationship has been based on the exchange of money.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe a relationship based on money to be fundamentally insincere and inequal as I have believed and perceived the landlord(s) to interact with me only because I provide them with money, not because I am a human being in need of a living space.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume that a relationship that involves exchanging money to automatically be corrupt, here associating money with greed and self-interest.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume, believe and perceive that my landlord(s) would not have anything to do with me if I did not have money to give them, here acting according to the fear of being rejected and limiting my behavior accordingly by “playing it safe” through showing respect, instead of allowing myself to see the actual possibilities of the interaction and allowing myself to create the relationship without limitation upon myself.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that money in itself is neither good or bad, and that the exchange of money is neither good or bad - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define a relationship based on an imagined value given for the tool I utilize in my relationship to my landlord.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel as if I owe my landlord(s) in addition to the money I give them because the fact that they offer me a place to live in is “so good of them” that I should give them additional respect and “keep my distance” as a sign of such.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to show my gratitude towards my landlord(s) with “respect” by not interacting with them as equals but as someone above and apart from me, not realizing that this is not an action based on gratitude but on fear – I fear that my living space will be taken away if I do not please my landlord or if I insult or disrespect him/her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize I am one and equal to my landlord(s) as we are both human beings and beings of life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit my interaction with my landlord to strictly business – interacting only when there's something to discuss concerning my living space.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the act of allowing me to stay within the living space my landlord(s) have agreed to borrow me in exchange for money so “great” that I have made myself small in front of it - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive myself to be “powerless” to provide myself a living space and be grateful when another gives me that which I am “unable” to get – not realizing that this act of exchanging money is the way I am able to provide myself a living space, and that the fact that I don't own a building or build a shelter doesn't mean I'm not doing my share of work to earn myself a living space.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear damaging my living space as the property of another because I have feared the additional loss of money and that my landlord(s) will think less of me as a result.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my landlord(s) will think less of me even if I carry my responsibility over my mistakes and the damage I have done and do all I can to mend what I've broken.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be judged based on a whim of the mind instead of being seen as my actual actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I self-honestly assess the situation and act accordingly to the best of my abilities to fix the situation, and if my landlord(s) still chooses to see me based on the mistake and not what I'm doing to repair it – judges me on my past but not on my present – this shows me that the other is not interacting with me HERE but from through the mind from which the reality is seen filtered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear these kinds of conflict situations where another judges me based on my past instead of seeing me as I am now, not realizing that I am able to discuss the matter with the other in such ways that will help bring about a solution – and that the judgement of another does not define me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid these kinds of conflict situations by avoiding causing any damage so that I wouldn't be judged because as a child I have learned that I ought to mold and define myself according to the judgement of my environment.

I commit myself to live as one and equal to my landlord as I now see, realize and understand the status difference I have perceived to be there is nothing but imagination which can be taken apart when and as both parties so agree.

I commit myself to no longer accept and allow money to define my relationships.

I commit myself to realize that actual respect towards other beings does not involve fear, and that actual respect is to live as one and equal to all and thus act according to that which is best for all.

When and as I am “alert” around a being, not wanting to upset the other – I stop, I breathe and I release myself with the support and assistance of breath from the tense posture I have fenced myself into. I realize the tension to be a sign of fear and actual respect to not include fear; I thus realize I am not acting out of respect but out of self-interest. I investigate for the starting point of my behavior (fear/desire) and how I've executed it (character). I no longer accept and allow myself to compromise myself for an imagined social agreement I had no say in establishing and return to the interaction as I stabilize myself within myself within and as breath.

I commit myself to realize mistakes become mistakes only when responsibility for them is not carried.

Days 124-126: Jealousy

23-25012013

I have been very jealous of my friends, family members and partners. Not in a violent, eruptive way where I'd throw tantrums and make loud demands and abuse others, but in a quiet, self-destructive manner where I mull over thoughts and guesswork in my head and never express my insecurity to others, creating and growing a black hole within me which grows in bitterness, blame and self-blame. As a child I learned through bullying and the experience of being abandoned to fear losing my friends (my social support), because apparently they could just suddenly decide to not like me anymore because I had somehow “failed” and then decide to like someone else “better”, and so when a person I had defined as “a friend” (as opposed to “foes”) appeared to show interest or fondness towards someone other than myself, I reacted with fear that the other will go away and like someone else more than me. I made myself completely dependent on those who I “got to” be in good terms with, because I believed that I had no power over creating my life and determining my social environment by choosing who to be friends / spend time with. So I would go into suspicion, doubt, sadness, helplessness and a pitch-black jealousy.

Since my childhood this jealousy pattern has existed with many different people, but mainly those who I have made into my stability points – my “special people”. Sometimes it would accumulate to such intensity that it would explode in one way or another, but mostly I would take all the damage on myself. To me jealous behavior has always seemed like something really “dumb” and I kept telling people “that's just stupid”, and so as I created a personality that rejected messed up behavior in relationships I suppressed those experiences in myself as I had an image to maintain (the independent woman persona). [Clarification: I experienced jealousy but suppressed this experience, and thus I reacted every time I saw someone else experience jealousy, and I refused to realize I am reflecting my own behavior through others by blaming and judging others for being jealous. “Remove the thorn from thy own eye.”]

So what I have missed this entire time is that I have misunderstood relationships as a child and that this jealousy pattern is based on that misunderstanding – and that, luckily, misunderstandings can be corrected. I have defined human relations to be a place where I get special validation of my value*, and that there is only a limited amount of this to go around; if someone else “gets to” be in a good relationship to someone, it means less affection for me. So I have believed that the amount of friendship/love (validation/acceptance) to go around in the world is a constant, when in fact it's a variable that depends on the overall conditions of the individuals, the culture and all of humanity.

So in this I have missed the fact that if two people interact with each other, it is just two particles of this life system connecting with each other right now, and that each particle of this reality is one and equal and in constant motion and in constant relation to all the other particles. So, in fact, I do not have relationships just with those who I have defined myself to have a relationship with - I have a relationship to all that exists.

Within this realization the concept of jealousy no longer functions. If I have an equal relationship to all that exists, and if I am just one, just me, and not merged with other people – I do not have “special” relationships, I only have current relationships, the relations that are HERE and immediate. As a being with a mind I am able to choose to move my focus away from other relations and choose new ones to work with, whatever supports and assists me at the moment. The fear of letting a relationship go (to “lose” a relationship) is to fear to stand on my own, to be only me and only one, but it is also to not realize that these relations do not disappear even though we choose to not focus on them at the moment. These relations with people, animals, institutions, concepts, activities, ourselves, everything – they're always here and they only disappear in death, and even then their effect lingers.

So, bringing this back to me: as I have watched by (or imagined) an interaction with “someone special” (stability point) and another human being and perceived there to have been fondness/interest, I have 1) interpreted the gestures and voices of others and guessed what they actually experience and then believed this guesswork, 2) separated myself from myself and others through insecurity/smallness by thinking “I am not a part of this interaction”, and 3) through helplessness and separation not realized I could become a part of this interaction (if necessary) as we are all equal particles in this system and that our movement is one and equal as we are all human beings and life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create another person into a stability point as I have seen the other to represent something I lack; and instead of reflecting it back to myself and working on myself to bring about that which I lack, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a dependency on the other and require that person around me to “balance me out” so that I wouldn't have to face myself and admit to myself that I am living as less than my true potential.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create caring relationships where kindness was exchanged (friends, family, partners) into a stability point where I get affirmation that I am accepted and loved instead of accepting myself and creating myself into that stability point as I am the only truly constant thing in my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive these caring relationships to be “special” because I believed I am only able to get this care from a few people because I did not trust most people and saw this distrust to be valid and a proof that others cannot be trusted.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my “gut feeling” of distrust as proof that people were untrustworthy – not realizing that even though there's a correlation, these two things (my inner experience and the possible future actions of others) are in no way connected to each other – the other person does not create my inner experience of distrust, I do – my inner experience in no way creates the trustworthiness of another and thus proves nothing one way or the other.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my guesswork about other people based on previous experiences where I was treated a certain way and I experienced “betrayal”. *
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear and a distrust towards certain kinds of people because they resembled the characters in a survival scenario I created in my mind based on events where I was “betrayed”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I do this I already decide what my interaction with these “untrustworthy” people will be like and I limit myself accordingly, for example by not talking openly and keeping things to myself in order to protect myself – not realizing that these people may well choose to act in countless of ways and that there is no way for me to foretell their behavior as in each breath choices are made, and that I am thus limiting myself from actually seeing what's present and where the situation could be directed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as a “special person” has interacted with another in a way I have interpreted to be fondness or interest, to react with fear that I will “lose” this person – lose my stability point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as a “special person” has interacted with another in a way I have interpreted to be negative, to feel pleasure as I have perceived myself to be “winning” in comparison to the other who was “losing” the acceptance of the “special person”, being secretly very content with myself – for doing nothing at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pick up clues from the behavior of a “special person” and piece together imagined situations in my mind where fondness/interest is expressed to someone other than me, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to then react to these self-created visions in which there was nothing real as even the people I play with in my scenarios are but puppets that are just my interpretation of who the others are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have reacted with fear to a “special person” showing fondness/interest towards someone else, to follow this reaction of fear and believe the fear is valid – that I might actually lose this person - not realizing that as I do not “have” the relationship in the first place it is not mine to “lose”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in fact no relationships are lost until in death, as all barriers we create in between us are imaginary and can be solved as I (as everyone) have the possibility and capability to choose to change and do things differently in each and every moment of breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have believed my fear to be valid, to follow my emotional reaction and in my mind create backchat, internal conversations, imagined situations and guesswork and act based on them – not stopping to question my initial reaction and the fear and the validity thereof.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from the “special person” by perceiving this person to be “more than” me based on the acceptance I did not give myself but instead received from this person; and then when this “special person” has chosen to interact with someone else perceive myself to not be one and equal to the other and thus believe I cannot be a part of the interaction as it is “bigger” than me and instead choose to seclude myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel insecure when a “special person” has shown fondness/interest towards someone else as I have in that moment believed I am “losing” because the person chooses to not focus on me but to focus on someone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the lack of something (attention) at a given moment does not indicate the existence of its opposite (refusal).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive myself to be “small and insignificant” when and as I have felt insecurity in these situations, here instead of questioning my experience of insecurity believing my experience and casting self-blame by thinking I am “not worthy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to explain my experience of insecurity to myself by blaming myself as I did not know how my mind works and this was all I had learned to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself as one and equal to others in these situations and thus exclude myself because I perceived myself to “not belong” within the interaction others had.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the person my “special person” chose to show interest/fondness towards as an “enemy” because I believed there was a limited amount of friendship to go around and that any affection shown to others would mean less affection for me – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to thus not see myself as one and equal to this person as I saw this person to be “more than” me as the person “held the power” to take my “special person” (stability) away from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not participate in the interaction others had in these situations and instead seclude myself, not realizing that I am limiting myself based on imagined statuses and guesswork motivated by fear and insecurity, and that none of this is actually real as it is only within my own mind, and that the only thing that's real is the actual interaction as movement and actions which I can only know of once I participate in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel helpless to direct these situation as I have seen myself to not be an equal participant in this reality and perceived myself to not have directive power.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear participating in interaction the participants of which I perceived to be “more than” me because I was afraid they would attack me for “crossing the line”.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself according to how my surroundings react to me, not realizing I am not the cause of that reaction but the trigger.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the reactions of others because I've defined myself according to them and so far the result definition has been quite the mess.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the social constructs we have agreed on and collectively create to be real in any way whatsoever, here “respecting” whatever limitations we have set for our interaction by limiting myself when the reactions of others remind me of their existence by telling me to “get back in line” or to “stick to the status quo”.

When and as I react with jealousy to other people, I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am reacting to the imagined loss of a quality in the other person which I have defined to be my stability point – something this person represents to me and I perceive myself lack. I realize this is nothing personal towards the other people as the experience of jealousy originates within me due to the points I have not yet faced. I then investigate my relationship to this other person in writing and speech to see what quality in this other person I have created a dependency towards. I realize that no relationships are ever lost until in death and that the fear of loss is thus not valid. I then forgive myself for what I have created the relationship into and consequently cleanse and unburden the relationship and re-create it into one that will be of actual support and assistance.

I commit myself to no longer act upon jealousy.

I commit myself to no longer accept myself to create stability points outside of myself and I commit myself to investigate those that already exist.

I commit myself to stop competing for attention as I now see, realize and understand that there is enough caring to go around for each and every one of us and that it is also up to me - “give as you would like to receive” - and that thus I do not have to “fight for my survival” and separate myself from others out of fear.

I commit myself to show myself I am able to change in each and every moment by challenging myself in action and movement to do things differently – to discard that which I have planned and create the movement HERE.

I commit myself to no longer blame myself for my experiences of jealousy, insecurity and smallness and instead show myself compassion, patience and kindness by forgiving myself.

I commit myself to realize we are all equal particles of this reality and all in a relation to everything there is, and that in that we are all one and equal.

Day 123: Walking HERE

22012013

Last winter I noticed a habit of looking at the ground while walking and simultaneously slightly leaning forwards. As this winter came around I've noticed it again even though it's not as prominent as before. A couple of weeks ago I was walking through a pitch-black forest trail and as I simply could not see the ground I was walking on even if I had wanted to, I noticed that my feet carried me even though did not see where they were landing. I realized that my body knows how to balance itself based on touch, weight, gravity and the sense of balance, and that all of this functions completely without the sight. Today I was walking outside and I realized that if I return my focus from my environment to my physical body in motion and breathing, lift my eyes up from the ground and instead of trying to spot things I might trip on take in the visual information from my surroundings without attaching myself to anything I see, and rest my weight on my center of gravity (hips) and allow my back and neck to straighten up – I physically, concretely support and assist myself to be HERE in a state of awareness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at the ground while walking because I fear stumbling and falling.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify looking at the ground while walking during the winter by thinking “the ground is dangerous because of the ice and snow”, being afraid that I will stumble on something and lose my balance – not realizing that if I stumble I stumble and I will deal with that and that it has no negative or positive value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear stumbling and falling because I have been ashamed to stumble because as a child I have been laughed at when I have stumbled, slipped and fallen.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lean forward while walking as I have been anxious to be at my destination already, here stating that the moment I am in is not alright and wanting to escape that which is here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive walking to be dull and want to get it over with as soon as possible to arrive at my destination.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not enjoy the act of walking from a place to another as I have been anxious to be somewhere else, thus sabotaging myself as I limit myself from participating in the simple pleasure of moving myself within this world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to while walking lose my focus from myself as a being in motion into my surroundings as the places I “have to” pass by in order to get to my destination.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself while walking to lose myself in my thoughts as I have wanted to escape the dull experience of walking from a place to another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust my body to be able to carry itself even without my constant supervision through fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust my feet to carry me even though I don't look at the ground they land on to ensure there are no obstacles.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust my body to re-balance itself if my feet land on an uneven/slippery/challenging surface.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe there is something “embarrassing” about stumbling, slipping and falling and thus try to avoid this at all costs and “play it safe” while moving in an unpredictable environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe stumbling, slipping and falling down to be embarrassing because as a child I was laughed at / ridiculed when this happened and I misinterpreted myself to have been the cause of their reaction instead of being a trigger.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the best way to support myself to be HERE as an active and aware being is by moving and carrying my physical body in a way that supports me to be completely within the moment and firmly (yet flexibly) above and within my center of gravity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see and realize the common sense in the relation between the physical and the mental.

Days 121-122: Believing the bullies

20-21012013

This post is a continuation to: Day 116: Fear of my past self as a motivator

• the remarks I received from other kids about my body that led me to comparing my body to those of others

I remember as a child around 8-9 years old receiving remarks about the shape of my head and I was given a nickname based on it. I became ashamed of the shape of my head and every time I looked at my face in the mirror I would be dissatisfied with the shape of my head and think I was ugly because of it. Every feature on my face was wrong: my chin, my cheeks, my skin, my nose, my moles, my hairline, every single detail was somehow “distorted” and “just wrong”. I learned to shape my face with my hair, meaning I would use my hair to frame my face in such a way that complimented my facial features and hid the shape which I considered ugly. I learned to hide behind my hair. This continued on and on until just a few months ago when I started to wear my hair differently, out of my face and revealing my head and face in its actual shape, size and formation.

I can't remember if I was ever actually called fat. This is very interesting because I have somehow always thought that I was – it might be that I have, but right now I cannot recall such a moment. If I didn't form the self-definition of being fat from the remarks of others, where then? I guess I could've done it all by myself simply through comparison: as I learned from my society (media, family, friends) that looks were important and that there were such things as “ugliness” and “beauty” and that one would either win or lose based on these attributes, I created a fear of being ugly / losing and constantly checked myself and others to see if I was winning or losing. Mostly I was losing, and this led to depression, anxiety and a round 15 years of self-suppression, self-limitation and self-abuse.

So it's no wonder I find it so difficult now to stand within myself, as I have learned to constantly hide myself and think less of myself. It's been more than a fucking decade of belittling myself.

• my mother and sister encouraging me to lose weight

I know they were concerned about my health, at least mostly. I guess hey might have also been afraid that I would not “make it” in this world if I became ugly – they knew how the system works as cruelty towards the petty and rewards for the pretty. I'm guessing it has been genuine worry for my well-being, and so I shall not ruminate on it no more. They meant it as advice, as a wake-up, but I took it personally, as though they were making a statement that I am not okay as I am and that I need to become an ideal (like my sister, who was an ideal to me) to be good enough. So the issue here is that I had created a bitter ideal based on my sister: she had faced success and admiration because she was beautiful. To me she represented ultimate winning, whereas I saw myself to be the ultimate loser. Thus I wanted to be like her and was constantly jealous of her, even though I simultaneously admired her and was happy for her success. She became a weapon to me with which I could smack those who bullied me: “I have a beautiful successful sister watching my back, don't you mess with me!” Lol, I'm not sure what the logic here is. As I couldn't/wouldn't become her, I would take advantage of her like a sidekick attaching myself to her so that I could bask in her glow. “I can't shine – she can shine for me – I don't have to learn how to do it myself.”

So as she literally embodied my ideals, her telling me to lose weight or to watch what I eat made me resent her words. I would not take them seriously from her. I would take them as an attack and defend myself with excuses and justifications. Even though she was an “ally” I saw her as an enemy, because she was winning and I was losing, and I thought I would always lose to her – that there is no way I could climb that ladder as I thought I was born ugly and she beautiful. It was like being friends with your worst enemy.

I guess I didn't also properly understand the health issues they were trying to discuss with me, as in what sugar and fat do to my body and what the actual consequences are. Also, I was way hooked into eating/snacking/sweets by then and was unwilling to face my addictions, and so I evaded all attempts to turn me around.

• the pudgy kid who was despised by all, bullied by all, ignored by all

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being despised, bullied and/or ignored by others if I become the way I was when I experienced these things as a child.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to associate being despised, bullied and ignored with the way I look because as a child I came to understand that that was the reason I was mistreated.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the way I look / the way my body is shaped was not the actual reason for others to start despising, bullying and/or ignoring me, but that it only served as a trigger to whatever issues they were facing themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for the reactions of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the validity of the actions of others, believing myself to be the reason for their behavior because I did not understand what was happening and drew conclusions from their words which were the only explanation I was offered.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to start to doubt myself based on the words of another, for example starting to ask myself “am I ugly” when another says “you're ugly”, not actually looking at the facts to determine whether this was true or at all relevant but only looking at an image of myself through a filter of expectations and fears, and not looking at my reaction (of fear) to these remarks which made me want to check the claim.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to a demeaning statement from another because I have learned that if I am what the statement implies (“less than”) I will lose / am losing / have lost in “everything” (social games, life, all competition – a general sense of being a loser in everything even though I had not defined what I was actually losing in). *
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I react with fear to a demeaning statement of another, to instantly check myself to see if I'm “safe” or not – to determine whether the claim has any evidence to support it.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I am making this assessment I am making it from the starting point of fear as my initial reaction was that of the fear of losing.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assess my external qualities driven by fear energy without me stopping myself to realize these external factors and the assessment thereof is not relevant at all.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe another to have power over me as I saw the opinions of one's surroundings to affect the quality of one's social life, which to me as a child was most of my life as I spent most of my time in school and became attached and dependent on the social environment of school.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all the effects of the opinions of others are accepted and allowed into existence by each and every individual involved, and that by not accepting and allowing the effects of the opinions of others to come into existence through me I carry my responsibility of not buying any of this bullshit and not allowing our fuck-ups to keep on existing unnoticed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that others were exerting their self-accepted and -allowed issues on me based on whatever justifications they could come up with, for example the way my body was shaped, and that how they treated me had thus nothing to do with me but was them showing who they actually were – them showing their “true skin”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear those who despised, bullied and/or ignored me, not realizing they too are acting out of fear and that we're all just afraid and really fucking confused.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize all of us (especially us kids) were just as equally fucked up, frightened and confused and that instead of buying into the coping mechanisms / defense mechanisms of others and reacting accordingly (with fear) I could've seen their reactions and actions for what they were (fear) and realized I do not need to defend myself, nor do I need to counter-attack, as these actions would only validate the existence of fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the attacks of others because I have not understood why others have been behaving this way and create a fear towards that which I cannot predict and thus control.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear of human interaction because I fear I will be attacked for no other explainable reason than me not being good enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see all attacks towards me as personal because as a child I have learned to interpret the attacks of others this way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the attack of another is not my “fault” if my intention has not been to provoke such a response.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to shut down in the middle of conversation/conflict/interaction if I perceive myself to have been attacked as I take the perceived attack personally and sink into the feeling of “not being good enough”. *

I commit myself to realize there is no such a thing as an “insult” as everything that I perceive to be “personal” is actually self-created, self-accepted and self-allowed as interpretation, imagination, projection and guesswork.

When and as I react to something another says with emotional pain, saying to myself “that hurt”, and thinking it was the intent of another to cause me pain - I stop, I breathe and I realize that no matter the intentions of another I am the one who accepted and allowed the reaction to occur within myself and that the words of another were simply a trigger to a point in me that I have not dealt with. I then investigate the point at hand through writing, self-forgiveness and self-correction.

Days 117-120: Unraveling the habit of eating

-- 16012013

Where the habit began

Before I went to school I lived a pretty carefree life and spent a happy and normal childhood. I spent most of my time with my mother and family, and as I was young I didn't have anything special to do – I simply explored life and the world and learned a lot of stuff pretty fast, such as reading, because I had a stable and supportive environment to develop in.

Then came this thing called school and along with it responsibilities. When I started school at the age of 6 I also started a couple hobbies (violin and dancing) – my first weekly activities which I also had to practice during my free time. Along the years I appeared to be “talented” and because of this I was put into more and more hobbies, such as more music, more dancing, theatre and lots of other various things. My mother wanted me to have hobbies because she never had a chance to when she was a child and saw them to be a precious chance to develop one's skills and explore one's self-expression. Right now I am grateful for i.e. having studied music since I was young, but back then for a child of relatively young age the work load I was under became too much. I started to experience stress.

Besides school work I had so many hobbies that I only had one hobby-free day a week. I remember being sad that I couldn't spend more time with my friends, and I remember my friends making remarks on how I “always had something to do”. They too wanted my company, but it was not mine to give.

Besides the stress from my over-worked life, I also faced a new stress-factor: being bullied. I am not sure how exactly the bullying began, because it was kind of sudden, but I remember it being the result of this weird jealousy drama between me and two of my best friends who wanted me for themselves exclusively. Suddenly I had been dropped out of the picture and everyone (the girls in my class) were avoiding me.

So I cannot be sure, but I am guessing that the stress eating has begun during this period of my life. As I was overworked (or not taught how to deal with a busy schedule / how to be effective) and socially secluded and had no support (for reasons yet unknown I never turned to my family or authorities about my troubles), I began to escape my stress into eating. I was unaware of the effects of excess eating and I did not care because all I wanted was to fulfill the craving. I have always enjoyed food, and so I guess the addiction grew pretty much unnoticed, and also because kids are supposed to eat plenty. Also, the habit of eating sweets in certain situations was accepted throughout my living environment, so I just did what I saw others do – and then got confused when I was told not to do it when it crossed a specific line. How come it's okay to eat three candies but not five? How come at first it's delight and then it becomes poison?

--17012013

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to experience stress when I was not allowed to decide for my activities and was told to go to school and attend my hobbies when I would've rather spent my time playing with my friends.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to not realize the value of school and hobbies as they were never properly explained to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to perceive playing with my friends (free exploration) to be more important than school and hobbies (disciplined exploration), not realizing they both have their pros and cons.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to believe and perceive playing with friends to be more interesting than school and hobbies because it offered instant pleasure within my comfort zone, not realizing that pushing the borders of my comfort zone further through guided training would offer me long-time pleasure and more areas to explore pleasurable things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to create a resistance towards school and hobbies, thinking they were things I had to do instead of things I got to do, because I had assigned school and hobbies a negative value in comparison to hanging out with friends which held a positive value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child as I was faced with this resistance over and over again to create an experience of stress where I anticipated the resistance and created a resistance to face the moment of resistance – for example, resistance during the violin class turned into a resistance to attend the class at all – and so made the experience of having to face these resistances stressful, tiresome and draining as I did not want to stand up and carry myself through the moments as I did not know how to do that and what it would ever amount to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to perceive myself as powerless to affect the cause of this stress – the moments of resistance which I was “forced” by authorities to face over and over again – and thus as I couldn't fight the stress I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose to escape it (“fight or flight”) into eating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to develop eating into a haven where I did not have to stress as the physical euphoria of eating took all of that “away” for a small moment – after which I had to eat some more to keep the stress away for a little longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to believe that escaping an issue is a valid way to survive, not realizing escaping is not a solution and that the problem will persist as I was never taught any of this.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react with confusion to being secluded by other kids as I had no reference in my short life experience to what a situation like that means and what needs to be done in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to feel distressed when my attempts to talk the situation through with the other kids did not succeed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to feel rejected and misunderstood when my attempts to talk the situation through were ignored, shunned or used against me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to feel sad as my friends – most of my social environment – suddenly weren't there with me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to feel like my world “collapsed” as my friends literally walked away from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child, when and as I no longer had the social environment of friends I had gotten used to at school, to react with fear to the new uncertain situation where all I had around me was a schoolful of kids and no friends (people I was comfortable with).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child, when and as I faced this new situation, to not explore the possibilities the situation offered (getting to know new people) and instead be intimidated by the situation and decide to get stuck with the past as bitterness, sadness and hatred towards my old friends.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to perceive the situation where my friends had walked away from me as intimidating because I perceived getting to know new people as “too much” for me as I “did not know” how to do that (did not have a pattern which to act upon). [This is related to the fact that until that point I had never approached anyone; all my friends thus far had come to me first.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to create a horror image into my mind of the moment where my friends walked away from me with words of disdain on the school yard – an image where the school yard seemed to expand to infinity and all the kids on it turned into possible attackers – an image of helplessness and vulnerability which was born as the fear of being alone creeped into my mind and rooted itself into my flesh.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child, as I had chosen to not face the possibilities of the new situation but instead act upon fear, to trap myself into a loop where I succumbed to the abuse of my friends out of the fear of being alone I created when I was first abandoned by them, thus becoming stagnant for the years to come where I became more introverted, more collapsed, more anxious, and where I escaped the results of my self-created loop into eating/snacking/sweets among other escape mechanisms [more on those later].

--

How to move now

I've realized that a lot of those moments where I fall are simply habitual. Eating cakes at work, snacking while relaxing, having something sweet after a meal, always walking through the candy aisle in the grocery store – all of this is habitual. So as the moment comes when I've gone through these habits with self-forgiveness and self-correction, all that is required is to breathe when I'm about to fall and direct myself to do something else – not to distract me, but to fill the “gap” the habit leaves with something else – a more beneficial habit, maybe, I'm quite careful about that, or something non-habitual, whatever happens to be here. The more I support myself through these moments, the easier it will become as the craving will become less. I know it will as I've tried this before and nearly succeeded.

The thing is, if this habit did not have any consequences, I would not do a thing to stop it. I don't see why the physical euphoria itself would be harmful – it's the attachment to the mind that harms my entire being as it supports me to choose based on instant pleasure. If eating sugar didn't have any consequences whatsoever, I wouldn't be here writing these words but be out there eating candy to my heart's content. The reality is that eating does have consequences both in the physical as in the mind – and even without the physical consequences the mind consequences would still be there. I'm not clear enough on the mental consequences giving in to snacking has on me, and that's why I lack motivation.

-- 18012013

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make a habit out of always eating sweets at a certain time during my work day, thus creating a craving when and as the specific time approaches and intensifying the craving if I do not follow the habit at the right time and a “gap” appears where I “should” be acting upon my habit.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as this specific time of my work day approaches, to create an anticipation about the pleasurable moment to come and start to look at the sweets we have at the cafe with the intention of deciding on what to eat.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always look at food with the thought “that looks so good”, imagining/remembering the taste of a piece of food and anticipating the pleasure of possibly eating it – in essence, “I have access to this and thus I desire this because it is a craving I am able to fulfill”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to prolong the actual physical euphoria of eating by at first imagining what the choices I have might taste like, indulging in the privilege of having a choice over a shelf-full of luxuries.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a habit out of eating something sweet every day, thus making it a self-created necessity without which my day seems to be “missing something”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to associate eating sweets with relaxation, this resulting to me feeling like I have not relaxed during my day if I haven't had a moment of eating sweets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the fact that I have lived through a great many days without sweets and been perfectly relaxed and stable proves/shows that this association with sweets and relaxation is not real and that sweets are not required for me to live a balanced life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not allow myself to rest and relax without sweets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I live my life believing I need sweets, I will experience myself to be in need of sweets, and that the root of the problem thus lies in my mind as to believe is to utilize the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not push through the moments of craving and instead believe my thoughts as justifications and excuses to fall – not realizing I am not my mind nor my thoughts even though they reflect that which I am and that I am thus able to direct myself to move contrary to my thoughts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need sweets, not realizing this belief is not based on the reality as in what organisms best support my physical existence but on the desire to escape into an alternate reality induced through sugar as a drug.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my belief that I need sweets is well-founded and justified even though I have never actually questioned it by allowing myself to face this belief or the fact that it is in fact a belief.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be afraid to face the fact that this is in fact a belief – that I am tricking myself into being directed by my cravings through the tools of the mind (thoughts, imagination, reasoning) and thus supporting myself to become and live as a mind-directed being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing the fact that this is a belief and self-sabotage as I knew that I would then have no more excuses to keep on eating sweets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing the experience of eating sweets.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing the joy, enjoyment, delight and stress release I get out of eating sweets as I have believed this experience to be relevant to the “experience of being alive” - I was afraid to lose the energy kick that made me feel alive – not realizing that these feelings as energy do not support me to live as a breathing, self-directed being of Life, and that they are just replacements to the stability I have lost as I have lost my innocence and humanity while being integrated to this mind-fuck of a system where we're lost within ourselves and mess up the world as we scramble blind to everything beyond ourselves for some sense of what's going on.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need the energetic experience of emotions and feelings to “feel alive”, not realizing I am already alive in each and every moment of each and every breath.

-- 19012013

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make a habit out of always eating something when I sit down to watch a movie/documentary/TV series or to read a book/magazine/newspaper because I have associated these activities with relaxation and associated relaxation with eating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like I'm “missing something” if I don't eat while watching or reading something.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel restless when I don't eat while watching or reading something, wanting something to do with my hands and mouth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I eat while watching or reading something my focus isn't fully on what I'm watching/reading because half of my focus is with the act of eating.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not live as the best I can be by limiting my full participation in watching/reading the material I am faced with by distracting myself by eating meanwhile.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and give in to the feeling of “missing something” when I don't eat while watching/reading something, not realizing this is the moment of change where I either repeat the loop by acting according to my patterns again or I stop, breathe, realize the craving is in my mind and that there's nothing actually missing as everything as myself is always HERE and then choose to not act according to the old pattern and move myself to do something else instead – not to replace the addiction with another, but to break the pattern and become self-directed in each of these moments.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose to stick with the habit of eating even though I have presented myself other options in the moment where I feel like I'm “missing something”, never actually considering the options and the choice I make without the mind's influence as imagination, memories, misconceptions, justifications and excuses.

When and as I face a moment where I feel like I'm “missing something” as I do not eat, I stop, I breathe and I realize that there is nothing actually missing as everything is always in fact HERE. I then investigate and assess within/through self-honesty whether there is an actual need to eat, such as hunger or malnutrition. I will here be brutally honest with myself about the cause of the need to eat. If the need is towards sweets, I immediately know it is not an actual nutritional necessity but a luxury and a poison that will have it's consequences on my physical body. I then make a self-aware choice to either eat if I actually need it or to not eat if I do not need it, and I breathe and continue with what I was doing as the feeling of “missing something” occurred. If the feeling persists, I return to writing and self-investigation.

I commit myself, when and as I feel like I'm “missing something”, to immediately physically bring myself back here from the mind by interacting with / participating in whatever is here at the moment to prevent myself from creating backchat and through that justifications and submerging deeper into the layers of my mind.

I commit myself to see sweets as that which they actually are – organisms that give my body quick shots of energy but in exchange eat away my health – instead of seeing them as “enjoyment I have access to and should thus participate in”.

I commit myself to investigate the thought “if I have access to X, I am entitled to / allowed to / encouraged to take it”.

I commit myself to show myself that through consistency in each and every moment of choice I am able to actually change myself so that these patterns little by little lessen and disappear.