Day 389: A "good student" dilemma - part 2: self-forgiveness

22022014

Are guidelines like this actually used somewhere?

This post is a continuation to:

Day 388: Feeling like a loser - a "good student" dilemma

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get disappointed in myself when I didn't get a “good grade”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect myself to get a “good grade” because I associated the way I had worked for the assignment (long hours, lots of work, enthusiasm, self-expansion) with situations where I have previously done the same in school and almost always been “rewarded” for it with a “good grade”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that basic schooling and university are different by principle (public vs. private interest), and that I cannot thus expect the same kind of approach on pedagogy and learning.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect university to be “fair” as I experienced my basic schooling (primary & high school), not realizing that even though basic schooling seemed “fair” and “rewarding” to me, it certainly wasn't that for everyone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that during my basic schooling I was one of the few privileged kids who had the skills and assets the school system seeks and rewards, and that the fact that I was well-off didn't mean that I worked hard and the others were simply lazy: it was often the exact opposite.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that all throughout my life I have been blind to the discriminating nature of the school system because I was one of those who got rewarded within it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get angry at “the world” when I didn't get a “good grade”, as I had expected myself to get one.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to demand that “the world” gives me “good grades”, as if it owes me recognition, as I have in school learned that hard work will be rewarded externally through praise and that I do not need to show myself acceptance – or that self-acceptance is not “enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that within the school system I have learned to be reliant on external validation, as I got addicted to the “feelgood” (elevation, pride, high status, acceptance, ego) I got whenever I was rewarded with praise or “good grades”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though the school system itself is partially responsible for abusing young people, I am responsible for unlearning this addiction because nobody else can do it for me; I may have learned it while I was an incapable child, but I've continued to reinforce it during my adult years.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I demand “the world” to give me recognition, it's as if I'm demanding for my “fix”: “I've earned my heroin, give it to me goddammit!”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “good grades” as those above a specified average (for example: above 8 on the scale 4-10; above 3 on the scale 0-5), as this is how the school system has defined the division between “good”, “average” and “bad”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that a “good grade” means that I have done well and that I am somehow exceptional, not realizing that the measures of “goodness” in school are arbitrary and have nothing to do with the value of the person in question, but are in fact there just to pinpoint and select certain kinds of individuals for specific tasks, jobs and career paths in the society.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that the evaluation system in university works like the evaluation system I had during my basic schooling, not realizing that whereas basic education is based on the principle of supporting individual growth through encouragement (with the exception of individual teachers), university is based on producing uniform professionals through strict assessment (with the exception of individual teachers).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect support and encouragement from university evaluation as this is what I have gotten used to during my basic schooling, not realizing that this expectation is unrealistic as the world of university is at the moment not about learning for the sake of learning but learning for the sake of winning – learning for self instead of learning for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect anyone at university to give a rat's ass about my individual experience of growth, not realizing that apart from the faculty of education this expectation is in fact unrealistic.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my teacher for wording the assignment unclearly, not realizing that I am responsible for assuming that I understood the assignment, and that in the “game of university” I need to read the assignments like the “devil reads the bible” and ask dumbed-down questions until nothing about the assignment remains unclear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to channel my frustration for “the world” towards my teacher in aggressive thoughts and words, accusations and belittling.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent the feedback I have received at university, not realizing that by resenting it I incapacitate myself from learning anything from it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that once I stop taking the university feedback personally – reacting with anger, resentment, irritation, frustration / excitement, pride, joy, glee – I can actually learn the rules of “the game” from it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accumulate my self-disappointment (“I failed” = “I suck at studying”) to a point where I lose all motivation to do my studies.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on studying the instant when the external feedback doesn't validate my personal experience (enjoyment in studying).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to belittle my personal experience of enjoying studying when I didn't get rewarded for it, thinking “what's it worth when it gets me nothing”, thus ignoring the self-expansion that happens when I study.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget that studying itself is not about the credentials I get from it but about self-expansion – learning and growing – and that even though the credentials may be important in “the game of life”, they lose their importance the second when this imaginary world construct collapses, thus leaving only personal assets practically valuable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I won't “make it” in the “game of life”, thus reacting whenever my grades aren't as good as I expect them to be as I see them as a gateway to success in “the game”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lose my sight of the “big picture” - studying for self-expansion and for life, and playing “the game” on the side if possible – thus losing my motivation for studying when my short-term goals aren't met.

When and as I feel resentment towards my studies, wanting to escape them into some other activities – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that in order to expand I am going to have to walk through my discomfort zone. I remind myself that I am studying for LIFE – for understanding of what the world is, how it works and how life could be improved for all – and I support myself to look for what there is to learn for me in the study assignment at hand. I focus on what I find interesting and what there is to learn and thus make working on the assignment enjoyable for myself. I commit myself to support and assist myself by breathing through the moments of discomfort, moving myself one step at a time.

I commit myself to teach myself to focus on learning instead of focusing on grades.

When and as I feel good after completing a study assignment, I commit myself to stop, breathe and look for any signs of expecting to get a “good grade”. I examine myself within the moment and utilize self-forgiveness to let go expectations, assumptions and definitions relating to the “good student” persona. I remind myself that the completion of a task is enjoyable in itself as it brings me satisfaction as a creator and expansion through application.

I commit myself to teach myself to stop taking grades (and other evaluation) personally, be it in a positive or a negative sense, “fair” or “unfair”.

Day 339: Balancing the social

24102013

I have recently been very busy with studying so I haven't had much time to spare for my daily writing, and the little time I would have had I have spent with some form of entertainment in order to “relax” or “unwind”. I have required “unwinding” because I've been stressed about failing my tests, and I have added on top of that stress by worrying about this pause from writing and by being distressed about some personal matters as well.

I haven't been too worried over any of this, but now it's turning into intense physical pain that I cannot ignore. During the weekend a couple of friends massaged my shoulders (they told me I was really stuck, which I was, but when I was stuck I was not in pain because I was so “crystallized” into my stance, like a fucking statue) and ever since I have been in pain constantly. My back has been in really poor condition because of studying positions where I have to hunch all the time and now the massage somehow released some physical points in my shoulders that I have previously “locked” underneath.

During the past couple of days (since the massage – thanks, guys, for probing around) I've been experiencing moments of depression. They stand out to me because I haven't felt depressed in a long time. They have occurred in moments where I have felt like I am “left outside” a group or a social activity, even though none of the moments have been such where I would have been refused access out of malice, but such where I have walked away voluntarily because it has been a practical choice.

This shows me how much the social life that I have built during these couple of months actually means to me: it has been immensely enjoyable and fun, there's been a sense of belonging and group spirit, I haven't had to be alone or secluded if I haven't wanted to. My life hasn't been this happily social yet independent in years (if ever) and I have simply been enjoying all of it, taking in the joys of being a social creature.

So now that the “high” is starting to wear off, I begin to fear losing it all. What if these people will abandon me? What if they start to resent me? What if I alienate my friends? What if I will lose all this “happiness”? Thus in moments of separation the fear is triggered - “what if I will never have it this good again” - and because my mind is used to such patterns since childhood, I start thinking of theories to support the negative outcome / worst-case scenario and I make myself depressed. In the beginning everyone has been kind of hyped about these social circles, but now that things are kinda stabilizing back to “normal” (people return to living their lives on their own terms, not sacrificing everything for the social activities) it's like there's a withdrawal that for me turns into heavy depression. And the answer to that is NOT to hang out with people more, no, but to look a what all this socializing has been “fulfilling” in me and what is missing when I'm not socializing.

Again (talking to myself), I do NOT mean that being social and having friends is a “bad” thing. I have made myself believe that solitude is a “good” thing because I have feared reaching out to people, and I have even demonized spending time with friends simply because I have been jealous, sad and depressed for not having that kind of a stable social environment myself. So what I'm dealing with here is the addiction and attachment to having company, so that I could bring myself out of the polarities (refusing all company – being dependent on company) and utilize the social aspect of life in a way that supports the well-being of all.

Will continue with SF.

Day 237: Meetings and partings

19052013

Getting addicted to a sense of stability created by external factors apparently happens really easily and very fast. Without too much details, in a couple of days I got attached to a certain environment (people, location, activities) with such intensity that even though leaving it all behind to continue with my journey was at first relatively easy, I suddenly broke down and noticed myself to be utterly torn by it. I have now been writing to pull myself out of this experience.

I notice that here, “on the road”, especially when traveling alone, two things happen. Either I find myself “not connecting” with people because of my independent way of going around, or I completely latch onto others to create my experience for me when I do “connect”. The in-between where I'd connect but also be independent is here every now and then, but then I fall very easily by believing a thought for example. I think this is what has happened here.

A couple of days ago I “joined” a group of people whom I enjoyed very much. At first I did things out of my own activeness, having “joined in” from a stable position, but then stuff happened and I declined – things happened and I allowed myself to fall. I will now go through these events (partly in private SF) to see where I went wrong.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to spend an evening out with the expectation that it will be fun and that I will experience many energetic fun things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with joy and energeticness to my expectations/wishes/hopes being fulfilled.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to spend a fun evening out with a bunch of people so that I could “feel alive” and escape my own company.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the company of others to escape myself and my fear of being alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to subconsciously “scan” my company in search of someone I could imprint on. [I actually noticed this habit this time, yet I didn't know how to deal with it and the program kept running.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach myself onto a person whom I “connected with” in a different way than with others, not realizing that this moment of “connection” was actually a moment where both really saw each other and faced each other with no fear, which is not something “special” or “more” as compared to the other people present but simply that which ought to be in between each and every being on Earth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel entitled to the attention of the one I attached myself to because I perceived our moment of connection to be “special” and thus defined our relationship to be “special”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to boost my “certainty/independence character” with the positive energy I got from my expectations being fulfilled.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to inhibit my speech and suppress my experience because maintaining my “certainty character” required so, thus not fully expressing myself to a person I am not likely to meet or connect with again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create scenarios where I do meet the person again and “make things right” and thus believe that by living out this scenario I “fix” that which caused my experience of regret – not realizing that these scenarios do not address the behavioral patterns that led to these events and that by fixing one string of consequences I will still not have fixed the actual cause.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not fully express to X how I actually experienced our meeting, our interaction and our parting; even though I mainly did, these emotional reactions indicate that there was something that I suppressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel sad about probably not meeting X again, not realizing that in a world of billions of people it is not necessary or practical to attach oneself to others – we are not special, yet everyone is special in their own way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to elevate one person above others because I have perceived our relationship to be “special”, not realizing that when I elevate one I bring all others down and make them “less special”, within this not realizing that each and every being is of the same exact value.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the “connection” I had with X to have been “special” because we were approximately of the same age group and cultural background which made it easier for us to relate to each other and thus faster to “connect” - not realizing that even though with others of different backgrounds finding this “connection” might be more difficult or time-consuming it is still of the same value than the fast one.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that X will be insulted, hurt or become spiteful by the way we parted, not realizing that he was there, too, to create that interaction and that I am not the only one responsible of it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach myself to the people, location and activities within which I momentarily felt very safe, welcome and embraced, thus reacting with sadness, distress, regret and panic when I realized that my environment had changed and would never return to what it had been.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make things more dramatic by i.e. thinking that something will "never happen again" - not realizing that even though a specific moment of life will never be repeated in its exact form, I cannot know what the future holds, who I will meet and what I will do - and that I am the co-creator of my future along with everyone else within this existence and am thus not helpless to just watch my life happening in front of me "never" or "always".

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget that I am the only constant building block of my life and that I have thus accepted and allowed myself to lay my sense of stability on others when I had the chance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get tired in my constant challenge to be self-reliant and thus allow myself to fall when there has been a safe environment to rely on instead. [*This point needs to be expanded on.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waver in my decision to let go of the familiar environment I had become fond of when I saw X's reaction to it, sympathizing with him and feeling bad for causing him to feel this way, yet suppressing this guilt, regret and fondness underneath the “certainty/independence character” and pushing forward with my decision without addressing these emotions/feelings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to appear strong and independent and thus suppress feelings and emotions that do not fit my definition of “strength” (which is pretty much all emotions and feelings).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for “fucking up” when I realized that I had suppressed myself and thus lived dishonestly and caused myself and another to feel really bad, not realizing that blame will not assist and support me to deal with the origins of this issue, nor will it help in sorting out its consequences.

Alright. I've got to now catch some sleep before I go climb a mountain. I am pretty sure I will keep on processing this point during my solitary hike, so I will most likely keep on writing about this tomorrow.

Day 234: "Having a romantic interest" as an addiction

15052013

[Today I opened up a point in private writings, here's some excerpt and SF on it.]

[Here I'm speaking mostly from the perspective of childhood experiences.]

Rejection. My romantic interests have rejected me ever since the first one. There have been few mutual ones, and some that I haven't responded to. I have built up this hope and this positive experience of another, positive view of another, expectations of the other being the most wonderful person ever, and when I have been denied access to this I have blamed myself for it – I have not been good enough. And it has been like all of my foundation has been crumbled away: I have laid out myself on the image of another person, a person I have not even known, thinking of this image as the “earth beneath my feet” because the energy charge of this has been so strong that it has helped me survive my daily adversities of being bullied, isolated and self-abused. So “having a romantic interest” has been an addiction to me, a drug to keep me going, something with which to replace self-support. Romantic interests and the related fantasies have been my “rosy glasses”, my distraction, my escape from the actual issues haunting me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get addicted to the energy I have received from having a romantic interest, as I have used this energy to fuel me in my daily living which was consuming to me because of all the adversity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose one person among a selection of suitable people (usually being physically available within my daily living and being approximately in my age group has been enough) according to the energetic reaction I have had towards this person on first encounter (“first impression”) as related to others available, choosing the one towards which my reaction was most overwhelming and most positive – then placing this person in a “special position” where I would start building fantasies and scenarios around this person according to the model my world had presented me (through movies, fairytales, books, media, celebrities), building up expectations, hopes and desires that these scenarios would come true so that I could release the anticipation and experience all the energy I had been promised, thus also creating fear that this person would no longer “be available” and that he would be “stolen” from me by someone “better” than me, fearing that all the scenarios and hopes and desires and plans I had invested in would collapse, because I would then collapse as the hole within me that I ignored with all this is still there, waiting to be noticed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build fantasies and scenarios of “security” and “safety” around this one selected person because I did not feel safe or secure within my world and within myself and instead of looking at myself for the cause and remedy searched for a “quick fix” from outside of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to repeat this scenario time and time again without realizing that the problem is within me, that it is not about “having the wrong person” or me being “not good enough” - it is this desire to have a romantic interest that is causing me trouble because I have been clearly unable to live without one as I have always latched myself onto another after the last attempt has “failed”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have not felt secure, safe or stable within my living, to search for security, safety and stability from other people instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that my “lack” is due to my immaturity as a human being which is the result of me growing up in a world that is immature.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the elements that I lack due to an imbalanced childhood from others, not realizing that it is not another's responsibility to give me what I lack so that I could live as a seemingly complete, yet actually incomplete being for the rest of my days.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is my responsibility to grow back my “missing limbs”, because when given by others it is but a “wooden leg” the giving of which consumes the other, and that me growing out of my own immaturity is the only known option that considers the best of all, not just my self-interest.

This leaves me with the question: why do I feel insecure, unstable and unsafe? Knowing the basics of developmental psychology, I'd say something in my process of growing up has been disturbed as a child – but when and how? This may have something to do with my relationship to my father. During my childhood he was “never there” because he was always working, and when he was actually present it was be uncertain whether he would be stressed and tired or really happy and cheerful – so I could never really trust him to “always be there for me” because sometimes he was obviously too tired to put up with my child-existence, and even though he tried to cover this up I of course noticed. So maybe I'm looking for that stability, that reliability that was never there from other men, trying to find the stability that I was supposed to learn from my father/parents but never did. Children learn by mimicking: I was never shown stability, safety, certainty, security in terms of a being's “inner balance”. Thus I did not learn this as a child, when all I had to mimic was unreliable emotional expression and self-abuse.

So, right. Whatever it has been, I have picked this all up as a child when I have actually been helpless about my life. What I didn't pick up when it would have been easy, I'm going to have to practice now when it's difficult, and that can only happen through consistent practicing: stopping the pattern, questioning it, not living according to it, directing myself otherwise. Moment after moment after moment. Walking myself out of this mess is not going to be easy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be consistent about stopping the related mind-patterns [which I opened up in private writings] as I have not realized that walking myself out of a dependency / addiction is the most difficult thing I will ever do because I resist it with all of my mind, and that it thus requires all of my effort to sort it out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop these patterns every time they occur and instead allow them to run for a while and only notice and stop them until they accumulate enough fear/desire within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be lazy about my writings as I have not been specific enough to actually assist and support me to overcome these mind-patterns.

I commit myself to map out these mind-patterns in full detail so that I can flag them and actually notice and immediately stop them when and as they occur.

I commit myself to no longer follow these mind patterns because I see, realize and understand that they will only lead to fear and/or desire and that I will end up looping in-between these polarities – neither one of which is based on reality.

I commit myself to write about the self-suppression related to this point. [Not mentioned here.]