Day 336: Reaching out to strangers

18-19102013

I was just walking down the street next to the university and a young man around my age walked past me. I saw him looking at me and so I looked back, and I saw that me looking at him encouraged him to look back at me after already turning his eyes away. It was a fun moment where I simply looked at another to express my curiosity, but I noticed that I kinda felt like smiling but couldn't do it until he had already passed me by. This has happened to me many times before, that I look at someone and feel like smiling but suppress it until the other cannot see it (or the smile escapes onto my face and I feel embarrassed), or I look at another without smiling and later on fear that maybe I appeared hostile because I did not smile.

I have been born and raised in a culture where strangers do not look at each other on the streets and do not smile, not to each other or to themselves. The lack of smiles is why a lot of foreigners find this place difficult to adapt into, because it appears hostile and cold even though under the serious faces people are really friendly. While talking to a mobile phone one is excused to express oneself because there is someone “familiar” one is talking to – someone from the “inner circle” that has “earned the right” to interact with this person – and after the phone call people revert back to silence and become serious and withdrawn. The phone call is not something you can share with the strangers next to you even though they're right there and heard and saw every bit of the phone call.

Having traveled in cultures where people do engage in contact with strangers much more easily, even if it's somehow superficial, I see that the culture I live in is very fearful, because even when one participates in apparently meaningless small talk one is at least giving oneself a chance to learn something from interaction. Here in Finland we don't even give ourselves that chance. Instead we keep to the small realities we create from the people we “trust” (have allowed ourselves not to be terrified with) and keep the rest of the world away and alienated.

When I look at it from this cultural perspective it is easier for me to see what exactly is wrong with the approach to strangers I have learned while growing up here. Why do I fear smiling to people? Why do I fear looking at people? Why do I fear opening conversations with people? It comes down to self-trust, self-honesty and self-expression – it all comes down to SELF, not who the others are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear smiling at strangers because I have wanted to appear cool and distant to uphold an appearance of superiority so that the other one would fear me more than I fear him/her. *

* This may date really far back in genetics, even.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to intimidate a stranger with my appearance because I have feared that they might possibly be hostile and thus tried to keep them at a “safe distance”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the behavioral pattern of attempting to intimidate others to protect myself is a defense mechanism I have created in my childhood / teen years when I didn't have the capacity to deal with all kinds of people, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that this defense mechanism is no longer necessary as I am no longer a child / teenager.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear showing friendliness (good intent) through a smile towards strangers because as a child I learned that I my friendliness is dependent upon the other one's intentions as I was unable to defend myself from bad intent. *

* Just think of a small child: many of them do not smile unconditionally to strangers (at least not after a certain point of development) but instead become restrained and nervous around strange adults. This only wears out after the adult has shown the child that he/she is “safe” to be around and approach.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being unconditionally “open” to all people (welcoming, friendly, warm) because as a child I have learned to protect myself by clamming up until my environment appears “safe” as I could not yet fully rely on myself regardless of my environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my environment was “unsafe” in my childhood because I did not have the tools and the capacity to deal with everything that there is to the world, and that the fear of “unsafe” environments and people is therefore no longer valid as I now do have the tools and the capacity to deal with whatever I come across. (May sound “big”, but the basics are actually really simple.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though I still come across “new” situations where things feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar and strange, these situations are not in fact “unsafe” - such where I would have to fear for my well-being – but that I can support myself through these uncomfortable, unfamiliar and strange situations unharmed (although most likely I will be changed) with the cognitive, social and physical tools I have learned while growing up to become a self-supported adult being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear looking at a stranger because I have perceived it as a threat, not realizing that it is in fact a window of opportunity and that my perception is outdated.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear smiling at people because I have perceived it to be a threat – that I am exposing myself to abuse by inviting another closer – not realizing that abuse will not simply “happen” to me but that I am capable of NOT accepting and allowing myself to be abused numerous times “along the way” (during the course of the interaction).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label the action “inviting people closer” as something negative because this has sometimes resulted to me being abused, thus blaming and guilting myself in advance to protect myself from getting abused again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the act of “inviting people closer” or choosing to trust people (which is initially self-trust - “I can trust myself to survive around this person” - “my abilities are enough to survive with this person”) is NOT in fact a negative act but that I have labeled it as such to protect myself from getting hurt.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear talking to strangers because I have feared getting judged because in this culture strangers talking comfortably to each other is uncommon.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that the people in Finland will think that I am “strange”, “weird” or “crazy” for talking comfortably to strangers as my equals and that people will not want to interact with me because of how they perceive and believe me to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if another chooses to seclude me from their reality because of their perception of me, it is not because I am somehow “not good enough” but because I trigger discomfort in the person on such a level that the person cannot / will not face.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on interacting with the locals after the first difficult words/sentences because I have interpreted this difficulty/stiffness to mean that the other doesn't like me and that I should just shut up – not realizing that the people who have grown up here just “warm up” really slowly because they're (we're) so afraid of each other, and that it may take a while to actually get close to a new person. *

* I witnessed an interesting scene in the bus where a man was talking to a woman with a dog. The woman was replying with very short sentences, just one or two words, but after a couple of silent moments the man kept on going in a very friendly manner. Little by little the woman's sentences got longer (which is also when I heard her accent and realized finnish is not her first language) and she got more comfortable with the man talking to her, even though in the beginning she seemed very uncomfortable. I admire that man for his uncompromised perseverance! I will learn from his example.

Whenever I remember to do this, I commit myself to practice looking at, smiling at and talking to strangers on the streets by walking with my posture straight, eyes forward and face “open” (no scarves or hats “blocking” my face) and by keeping myself grounded in breath aware of my movements and aware of what I see around me. I commit myself to take note of all reactions that occur in me when I do this and to go through each revealed point in written or spoken self-forgiveness.

When and as I feel resistance/hesitation to look at, smile at or talk to a stranger, I stop, I breathe and I realize that the resistance is a remnant of a childhood defense mechanism that is no longer valid because I am no longer a child. I realize that I am now in fact fully capable of facing and supporting myself through everything that may come about within interaction with other human beings, because I know how to learn, adapt, express and communicate. I bring my focus to breath and ground myself back into my body and allow myself and my existence to rely on my physical completely. If the stranger is still there, I return to the interaction within and as self-trust. If not, I utilize my stabilized state otherwise.

Days 271-273: One big family

09-11072013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

28-29062013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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