Days 408-409: The healing process is to learn from mistakes

This post is a continuation to:

Day 407 - Being ill




18082014

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think about the disease in a dramatic way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use dramatic words, tones and phrasing when describing the symptoms and/or consequences of the disease, such as saying the virus will remain in my body “for the rest of my life” or exaggerating the pain or discomfort I have been in and the length and magnitude of the symptoms.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of having the disease as a dramatic story, where I have been the victim of unfair adversity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by thinking and speaking of the disease in dramatic terms I assign myself a role / a position where I am “the victim” and thus justify not carrying responsibility for the disease.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive I am helpless to prevent disease and/or to direct my healing process when I am ill, not realizing that as everything in this reality is connected, nothing that occurs in my body is a coincidence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that thinking about the disease in dramatic terms triggered a feeling of despair in me, one that continued into depression and anxiety, and that I created these feelings by separating myself from what is HERE and what can be done about it.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect the disease to pass in a few days as I assumed it to be a normal flu, not realizing that the long-term symptoms would have pointed to another direction had I examined them more carefully.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist looking at the long-term symptoms (prolonged muscle pains, fatigue, swollen face) as I have been afraid of having an uncommon illness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid looking at and evaluating my symptoms because I have been afraid of what I might find: an illness as the consequence of how I have lived my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with frustration and fear when and as my expectations were not fulfilled as the disease continued longer than expected.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that other people will get tired of taking care of me and abandon me as I am no longer “useful” (entertaining, engaging, stimulating) to others but instead become “useless” (unfulfilling, boring, burdensome).

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my partner will get tired of the relationship being “on hold” while I am physically incapacitated from any form of interaction and that he will leave me as a result.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when the disease continued as I became afraid of being abandoned.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to heal as fast as possible to avoid abandonment.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing my friends because of prolonged sickness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “missing out on life” while I am sick, with this referring mainly to social events I have been unable to attend while sick, not realizing that I am not missing out on life in fact, as LIFE is here even when I am am sick – sickness is life, too – but that I am “missing out” on “fun”: experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness are dependent on specific social conditions and cannot be experienced while sick and alone.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to confuse the experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness with stability, believing and perceiving that the positive emotional experiences can provide a stable focal point to my life, not realizing that the nature of experiences is inherently unstable and fickle, as no emotion/feeling can be made to last forever or to remain the same; Thus, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that reliable stability can only be found outside energetic and emotional experiences.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about “missing out” on positive experiences (and fear facing negative experiences) as I have believed them to be “the fuel” I would need to live on.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to physical disability, as I have been afraid that I would be somehow disabled for the rest of my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making mistakes that can't be amended, not realizing that in the end there are very few mistakes the consequences of which couldn't be directed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making a mistake that will permanently disable my physical body in some way, not realizing that this fear is a sign of my mistrust towards myself – of the fact that I know I am not living as self-honestly as I could and that it can bite me in the ass some day.

--

But hang on. What if this is the greatest fallacy of all?

One of my clearest personality traits (or issues) is perfectionism: trying to do things as well and flawlessly as possible, because I see no point in aiming any lower. The whole low self-esteem thing with “I'm not good enough” popping up everywhere is tied to this survival mechanism, where I kind of try to compensate for myself with my actions – myself, which I perceive to be very small, insignificant and insufficient. Most of the people closest to me, and even those that are not that close, have picked up on this, although not many discuss it directly.

Because the people in my life have helped me become aware of this personality trait learned somewhere way early in my childhood, I have become more careful about walking this process. I fear that I am looking for “fault” in myself where there is none, because there IS an actual risk for me misrepresenting myself to myself, and often people respond to my attempts to develop myself by dismissing my attempts to carrry self-responsibility with “you don't have to be perfect”. I know this is probably in most cases a defense mechanism, but I'm still doubtful. What if I am doing myself harm by trying to be “perfect”?

But I am not aiming to be perfect. I am engaging in a process to become the best possible version of myself: considering the circumstances I have been born and raised in and the possibilities I have now as the outcome; the time I have left; the skills I have and the skills I am still able and willing to learn; the support I have available in my environment. I by no means expect myself to ever be “ready” or “done” with this process, I do not expect myself to learn everything there is, I do not expect myself succeed flawlessly in any of my attempts. What I do expect of myself, however, is patience, perseverance, consistency, self-management (I prefer this to “self-discipline”) and absolute self-honesty – at least eventually, as the cycles of self-deceit sometimes can't be unraveled right away. Can this be called perfectionism? I'd rather call it integrity or self-respect. Why would I disgrace myself by not showing myself respect?

Also, I do not see the process as linear, where I'd have a single outcome to reach for. I do not see myself lying on my deathbed and thinking “this is who I became!”, lol, and waiting for judgement. What I refer to with the “best possible version” of myself may be different in different points of time and space – it is simply the potential that I would be able to live out, and this can and will vary as I change and my environment changes.

So, when writing the last self-forgiveness statement above, I wrote the words “I'm not living as self-honestly as I could” and I saw self-judgement.

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27082014

I commit myself to show myself that most mistakes can be amended by redirecting oneself and managing the consequences of a mistake, just like an illness heals once the cause is addressed and dealt with and the symptoms alleviated.

Thus, I commit myself to live out the commitment above by following this self-corrective statement:

When and as I consider myself having made a mistake - by for example thinking about having made a mistake, blaming myself for having made a mistake or feeling bad for making a mistake – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that a mistake is also a chance to learn and develop, and that a mistake is not a negative (nor a positive) thing. I take care to not believe my self-judgement, I look at the cause of my mistake and I forgive myself for it. I look at the consequences of my mistake and I ask what could be done to reduce their impact. I take action to make amends for the consequences of my mistake and to redirect myself in a way that will prevent the same mistake from happening again. I remind myself that a learning process is a series of mistakes and that mistakes are inevitable if one wants to learn.



The next time I get ill, I commit myself to focus primarily on resting and self-care to support myself with my immediate circumstances and secondarily on piecing together a picture of what events and actions led to the disease in order to support me in my long-term process.

The next time I get ill, I commit myself to face the illness as LIFE, not as something that separates me from life.

Day 401: Trust issues

15052014

I have been writing things down again lately, but I haven't yet been able to produce text comprehensive enough for publishing. This is why today I chose to record a video based on what I had processed in writing and application earlier.

Day 400: Fear of being happy

06052014

I realized today that I am afraid of being happy. I was talking to a friend and trying to explain how I have experienced myself and life lately, and when it came down to saying “I have simply been happy” I noticed a resentment towards making a statement like that. To break the moment down: there was an impulse/idea to express myself through the word “happy” - I reacted to the word with resentment – a push to say the words despite the resentment – followed by the fear of having made a mistake – followed by thoughts along the lines of “what does he think of me now”, “did I screw it up”.

When I stopped to think about this experience I realized that because I have grown used to thinking of life in polarities – the good and the bad – I am constantly both afraid of being unhappy (because it is unpleasant) and happy (because it always leads to unhappiness, which is again unpleasant). Because I have seen how the ups and downs of living life in autopilot always lead to each other, I have created an ideal and a desire to find the in-between, the equilibrium – a state of balance that would be neither here nor there. I realized that because of this goal I am afraid of any experience that is NOT bad (unpleasant), because I interpret them to be in the “good” end of the spectrum (red flag - “you're gonna crash!”, “this is not going to last!”), when in fact this might not be the case.

In my experience there are three ways to position oneself towards life and the experience thereof. One can either filter one's experience through the negative (pessimism, cynicism) or through the positive (optimism, hope) – or one can do neither, and simply take the reality in as it is (realism, pragmatism). I do not mean to place these three in any order, and I do not claim that the latter is the “best” way to live life – I have simply found through my own experience that it is usually the most real, genuine or honest way of living, and I do prefer truth over happiness, as focusing on the truth usually leads to solutions whereas focusing on happiness usually leads to compromises.

The dilemma that bothers me here is that what I have defined as the in-between/equilibrium is actually enjoyable – just not in the same way as the positive polarity. I interpret myself enjoying life as “bad” because I believe I should not be enjoying myself, that enjoyment is bad because if I enjoy myself I must be off-balance. This is a misunderstanding I need to correct. There is a clear difference between enjoyment and having my head in the clouds, so to speak – as well as there's a difference in experiencing pain and suffering. The equilibrium does not mean that I should not be experiencing anything at all, but that I simply experience the things I come across without holding onto them, without transforming them into mental scenarios, into rocks that I load onto my back, and instead allowing them to just flow through me as space flows through time. Perhaps to be in balance is to know how to bring myself down from the clouds as well as to pick myself up from the ditch.

I realize that the experience I now labeled as “happiness” has not been just pure enjoyment but that I have slightly gone to the positive end, and what I need to realize is that IT'S ALRIGHT – I don't need to panic, lol - “oh fuck, I'm gonna crash now?!” - lol – no, what I need to do now is simply to land gracefully from the heights. I can trust myself to handle myself well enough to not plummet back down.

And to be honest, I am not entirely sure how much of my happiness experience has been balanced and how much of it has been hype, precisely because of the resentment. I am probably looking at my enjoyable experiences through the resentment filter and seeing “bad” in them even though there would actually be none (or very little).

This dilemma of what kind of enjoyment is OK and what is not calls for an experiment:

• I commit myself to allow myself to enjoy life and self-expression without guilt.
• I commit myself to allow myself to use the word “happy” to express myself (because when I observe myself it is clear that I am living this word at the moment – no point in suppressing myself).
• I commit myself to observe and take note of any and all energetic sensations I experience in order to map out my happiness experience.
• I commit myself to not suppress any of the energetic sensations (feelings) I experience, but to instead live through them within and as breath.

Day 395: Mapping out the experience of "falling in love"

23032014

Type "falling in love" into google image search, and you'll see just the other side of this coin.

I have recently been walking through the energetic experience many call “falling in love”. This has been interesting, because even though I have gone through this experience many times before, I have never before had awareness of how the experience is created, and thus I have always been “swept away” by it more or less.

First off, I am frightened about this experience, because I fear it will warp my relationship to the person the energy is directed towards. My experience so far has shown that every experience of love eventually turns into an experience of hate. I have ended up resenting every person I have “fallen in love” with – and god dammit, I do not want to resent this person, or anyone at all, I really don't want to create a relationship that is doomed to become charged with underlying negativity and fall apart. To build on the experience of “love” is to bring about the polarity at some point, and it would be irresponsible of me to just ignore it and “go with the flow”.

Secondly, I am a little overwhelmed by the massive energy build-up that I've accumulated through feelings, reactions, thoughts and imaginations. I can see the thoughts and fantasies when they're here, and I have been trying to map them out to see what need it is I am fulfilling in the thought/image. I haven't been writing any of them down, and this has made it more difficult to track what's going on. During my highest energy peaks I've been trying to teach myself to channel and release the energy and direct myself according to common sense, although here lies the risk that I am suppressing myself, which is no good either.

I realize that this energy build-up has already started many years ago when I have first met this person, and that now the circumstances have simply been favourable for acting upon it – I've thought to myself that I am “finally ready” to face this person. In a way this is accurate. I've come to realize that who I've believed the other to be is not in fact who he really is, because the image I've had of him has been shattering when I have changed my positioning within our interaction into one based on self-honesty (occasionally I am still scared shitless and play along with the usual social patterns on auto-pilot). So yes, in a way I have been “ready” to see him as he is. I used to react to him with a mixture of fear and awe, but with the image of him being replaced with knowing him as a human being both the fear and the awe have vanished. This hasn't decreased my affection, quite the opposite, it has simply brought me down to earth.

Having released those reactions, the “love” aspect still remains. I can see that it's an accumulation of energy that has been triggered in reactions I've had within our interaction – many small moments of “oh!” turning into a fucking fanfare. These reactions require precise mapping, because right now they're still a blur to me.

• seeing him (wanting his presence / fear of not having his presence) –> fulfillment / unfulfillment
• touching him (wanting acceptance/attention / fear of rejection) –> gratification / disappointment
• discussing with him (wanting to succeed / fear of failure) – looking for signs of approval –> success / failure

• reacting to opportunities: when the circumstances are right, seeing a storyline that could be fulfilled –> choosing to want/resent the outcome –> creating anticipation –> blocking myself with tension

There are probably many others, but these are the most basic ones I could find based on memory. I need to start paying attention to these reactions when they occur – not to suppress them (note to self) but to know myself and to direct myself according to who I reveal myself to be. Fuck, I still have a big issue with self-suppression, because on some level I still believe that I “shouldn't feel like this” or that I most definitely shouldn't act upon any of this. Some of the guilt aspects I have worked my way through, but some remain.

I don't believe I should be too hesitant, though. I can trust myself to see what I'm doing and if nothing else, to carry responsibility for the consequences of my actions, whatever they may be. I, like many others, fear making mistakes above all, and I haven't yet solidified the fact that as well as on other fields of life one learns through trial and error, so does one learn in relationships as well. I've already done some of the major mistakes and learned a lot, so I don't think I can fuck this up that badly, lol.

Continuing with self-forgiveness and with more mapping.

Day 394: Failing at life

19032014

I have thought about my participation within the Desteni group and how it's been wavering quite a lot within the past 6 months or so. I make commitments to keep up a steady pace of producing content, to interact with the other group members, to partake in the maintenance of the group projects – and I always end up failing more or less. I haven't been able to keep up my pace of writing this blog at least 3-4 days a week – a drop from the 7 days a week I used to do for several months – and this blog is pretty much the last piece of participation I've been holding onto, because I have really not wanted to let it go. I have seen the practical value of writing and publishing my writings, and I feel that if I were to completely drop the blog I would completely and utterly FAIL, like giving up on myself in some way.

I just now asked myself about this, and I was surprised how clear it all suddenly was. The reason I fear taking on this commitment and investing my time on it is because I fear losing the people around me. I fear that if I were to change into the next gear (“next” here doesn't imply “better”, just a stage of movement to a direction), the people I hold dear would scatter away. But I can see that whoever I become, there will always be someone to agree with me and get into the car with me – lol, such a good metaphor – and that me holding onto people is an act of fear and not one of practicality. Of course this doesn't mean that I will lose the people around me, but I am not even giving them a chance to face that decision.

In a way I am living within and as a compromise: I see that to change my living would be impractical in terms of coping, and so I adapt to my circumstances. I adapt myself because I fear there would be no one left if I didn't.

What I mean by this in practice is that even though I am currently very busy with my studies and work, I am also spending plenty of time on recreation and procrastinating (not that they're the same thing). I realize that recreational time is important for me because through it I give myself freedom to create and express in ways that do not fit within my work schemes, and through recreation I also give myself time to rest and recover from any possible stress my body and mind have undergone. But not all of my “free time” is used in this manner. Sometimes I simply avoid doing anything of relevance because I have driven myself into mental exhaustion, and I justify this with the need to “rest” without asking why the fatigue is there in the first place and whether it could have been avoided. There's also a guilt aspect to this, where I accuse myself of having “indulged” in recreation, even though when I honestly look at my doings I know that this is not the case. I have taken care of my responsibilities – except for this commitment to participate with Desteni.

It might also be that I am simply trying to carry too much, that I am only starting to recognize my own limits. Maybe I am way too occupied at the moment to add on any more responsibility without turning it into a stressful compromise of a life. I know that my studies will be over in a couple of months, and that I will then be able to for a while focus on other tasks. I know that stressing about it will only make it worse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my commitment to participate in Desteni.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to take on responsibility as a part of the Desteni group.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to update my Journey To Life blog because I have defined upholding the blog to mean that I am “doing OK”, that I am active and willful, that I am consistently walking my process towards becoming a competent human being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have already failed at upholding the blog, if not a year ago when I broke my writing rhythm for the first time, then at least this winter when I failed to write even once a week.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I have failed my process by not writing a blog post every day, not realizing that I have in fact been walking my process in practice and in private writings, if not every day of the week, then at least more than half of the days, and that I have not failed my process but simply failed the task of reporting about it to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fail the commitment to report about my process to other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear failing to walk my process because I perceive and believe that I will then fail at life and as a living human being, not realizing that “failure” and “success” are simply different outcomes of different choices and actions, and that I have just decided to charge some with positive meanings and others with negative meanings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when I die there will be someone/something to measure how “well” I have lived my life and that I would then feel shame / pride according to the result – not realizing that shame and pride have to do with this world and this reality and how things work in this dimension of existence, assuming that life after death will be as it is here when and as the human mind dictates how life is experienced, not realizing that life after death could be ANYTHING unimaginable – and that to fear possible feelings of shame by judgement – which can be breathed through and released, as they can be in this reality - is thus to focus on the irrelevant: if I cannot know something for sure and prepare myself for it, why stress about it at all?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that there is an authority who decides whether my life has been “good” or “bad”, not realizing that it is ultimately up to me to decide and carry responsibility for my decision.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to secretly wish for there to be an authority to decide upon the “preferable” and the “unpreferable” so that I wouldn't have to look for the truth myself and make a stand as myself, not as a vessel of God/universe/whichever authority.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to participate in Desteni so that I could feel better about myself, as if I was then “saved” from The Judgement, and not from the starting point of wanting to work for this world as a whole.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to participate in Desteni from the starting point of self-interest and fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to really contribute to the Desteni group and not only slow it down, my starting point needs to be selfless, as it needs to be in whatever I do with other people for all of the world.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that selflessness doesn't mean that I'm excluded from everything else, but that the concept of “self” disappears in favor of All.

I commit myself to map out and revise the ways I use my time.

I commit myself to focus on my main responsibilities – studying (to establish a position for myself in the world system / to educate myself), working (to sustain my living / to apply what I've studied into practice), and civil society participation (to rehearse working with people / to create networks and relations) – and to thus give them my full focus and energy, only taking into consideration other possible responsibilities when/as/if I have time left over from my current main responsibilities.

I commit myself to regularly revise my responsibilities to see if some need to be let go and replaced with others.

I commit myself to take into consideration the fact that my capacity is in fact limited even though it can be expanded to some extent, and that I cannot take on too much responsibility without the quality of my input decreasing.

I commit myself to build my life to be enjoyable, constructive and fulfilling in a way where I give to Life more than I take from it.

Days 384-385: Re-aligning my relationship to children

22 & 24012014

Before I continue with my writings on efficiency, I would like to focus on a point that has surfaced just recently. I read Anna's blog post about how children learn to fear adults, and the realization process that begun unconsciously as I read the text came to an epiphany yesterday.

I have been directing a basic course of theatre for children around the age 7-13 since September. My group has around 16 kids, and the course has been going quite well with no major conflicts or disagreements. At the end of our last week's meeting, however, we were doing an exercise that was a bit out of ordinary an unpleasant to some kids, and a child got upset and angry towards another child. I tried to resolve the situation with no success: I went to talk to the upset child who had run away and also asked for the other child, the one she was angry towards, to join the discussion and explain his point of view on what happened. However, the other child was reluctant to join in, very defensive in his speech and left the situation as fast as he could. The upset child refused to answer anything I said throughout the situation. Both children ended up leaving feeling bad – and so did I.

What I realized yesterday was why the other child was defensive. As I asked him to come discuss the matter, it was a setting very similar to situations where kids are often assumed to have done something “wrong” for which they need to be punished. I can now see that he was afraid of getting told off, of getting punished, of having to apologize for no reason, of being unfairly responsible. I was not going to do any of this, but I did not realize that I would have actually needed to clarify this to the child, as I, in that situation, was a representation of the punishing adult figure. This is a whole new position of responsibility for me as an adult.

What I also realized is where I went wrong with the child that got upset. She reacted to a specific role she was assigned within a play scenario, which was not intended as an insult but was more a result of carelessness. I explained the situation to her and did what I could to offer her assistance to walk through the reaction, but she chose to hold onto her emotion. Originally this is not how I saw it: I was moving by my fear of failure. Throughout this course I have been afraid of failing in the eyes of my superiors (my mentor & the parents of the children), and I have defined “failure” to happen when the children do not in any way enjoy the course or learn anything of value. When the child reacted and ran away, I reacted to what I saw through this fear and tried to “fix” the situation (soothe the child) so that my superiors wouldn't judge me (the child's parents). What I failed to realize here was the reality of individual experience and choice, and also the context of what actually happened. By trying to comfort the child I also validated her reaction, even though her reaction was not in fact valid – so instead of holding onto my fear of failure and trying to get her to calm down, I could've clearly explained the situation to her and left her to process on her own when she chose to shut down, because that moment onwards she was already on a one-way track: the mind-pattern, the “program”, had already been initialized, it was already running.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that because the relationship between adults and children has been warped into a power play where adults hold the power and children are stripped of individual will, I as an adult and the one “in power” am responsible for de-constructing and re-building this relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that children fear me because to them I represent all the adults they have met, possibly ones that have punished them and treated them as lesser beings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take into consideration the fact that children in general are indirectly taught to fear adults.

• As a side note: do you know the moment when you look at a younger child and at first they immediately draw back and just watch you very keenly to see who you are? After which they either decide to relax or to remain withdrawn. That's a phenomenon I am guessing has something to do with this fear point.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my authorities (my mentor and the parents) will perceive and believe that I am doing a bad job with the course and define me “incapable”, “unfit”, “unqualified”, thus meaning that I have failed in my attempt to design and direct the course.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/desire to be “capable”, “fit” and “qualified”, wanting to “have a place” in the world and do something constructive, be useful and for my existence to be meaningful, thus creating a fear of being the opposite: “incapable”, “unfit” and “unqualified”. [This point needs elaboration.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define my mentor as my “authority” because she has taught me a lot, not realizing that teaching another person does not grant that person (direct) power over the other.

• By teaching the other things from his/her perspective there IS power being used, as in presenting a perspective as the whole truth, but this is indirect power play which I will not go into.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when I am taught by another, the other is then “more” and I am “less” because he/she happened to have the information before I did and was willing to share this with me – not realizing that this makes no sense at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the relationship of a teacher and the one being taught is not a one-way exchange, but that within that moment of interaction both may learn from each other – and that the act of teaching and being taught in itself thus holds no power relations and can be based on equality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as my mentor has taught me, I have taught her in exchange, even though I haven't done this in a traditional setting of teaching.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am an equal to my mentor.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself as an equal to my mentor.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my mentor will see what I'm doing with the kids and react to it because I'm not directing the course the same way as she used to, not realizing that her reaction is primarily an indication of who she is (reacting to change) and not a sign that I'm doing things “wrong”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume that my mentor would react negatively if she saw what I'm doing with the kids as I perceive and believe she doesn't trust me to “know what I'm doing”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my mentor doesn't trust me, not realizing that her allowing me to take on this responsibility and then undertake it for months already without her direct supervision, is in fact an act of trust.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to “know what I'm doing”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “knowing what I'm doing” to mean I have a clear vision behind which I can stand firm like a mountain, thus executing the plan without failure – not realizing that I am looking at an ideal and not the reality of who I am at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though I do not attain the ideal I still, to an extent, have a vision of what I'm doing with the course, principles that I act upon, a plan that I am somewhat following even there are changes on the way – and that how I'm doing it is in fact choosing the path of uncertainty in order to take all components into consideration, thus allowing more flexibility and more power to the children, rather than choosing the path of certainty and overriding a lot of factors just to keep the plan going.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for not being certain of what I'm doing with the course, not realizing that it is not a bad thing, as now the course is there as a platform to serve the participants and not the other way around.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear of things spinning out of control when I saw the child getting angry and running off.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that within that moment the fear of failure activated in me, thus dictating all of my following actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to go to the child to try and “fix” things – to “fix” the chaos.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if there's chaos on the course, I have failed – not realizing that directing 16 individual beings without it ever going chaotic is a challenge that I might not and don't have to live up to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accumulate my fear of failure further when I talked to the child and she did not reply, as I interpreted her silence to mean that I was saying the “wrong” things, not realizing that she had already withdrawn and shut down from the moment onwards that I touched her and staid beside her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when she asked me to leave her alone, I should have actually done that.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when she asked to be left alone and I dismissed her request by thinking I know better and now have to explain the situation to her, I contributed to her shutting down by not letting her have the space she wanted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dismiss her request to be left alone as I was moving by my fear of failure, thus feeling like I “have to do something” and not just leave her alone, as leaving her alone felt like “doing nothing” - when in fact giving her space and allowing her to process the situation on her own would have been “doing something”.

When and as I see a child reacting negatively during the course, I stop, I breathe and I scan myself for any self-judgement. I remind myself that the reaction of a person on its own doesn't say anything about the trigger, even though the reaction can be used to reflect upon the trigger – and that the reactions of the children are not direct statements about what the course is and who I am as a director. I breathe and I let go of the self-judgement in self-forgiveness in breath. I then look at the situation from the child's perspective, ask questions if needed and proceed accordingly.

I commit myself to de-construct and re-construct my relationship to children to be one based on equality and oneness.

I commit myself to find and speak the words to describe my approach to directing this course in order to define my stance and thus build trust in myself.

I commit myself to stop and breathe to listen when a child makes a request.

Days 381-383: Efficiency - self-judgement, punishment and sacrifice - part 1

19-21012014

A point that I would like to open up in writing is that of efficiency. I have a strong urge to strive for efficiency in various contexts, and when I look at myself in self-honesty I see that this need to be efficient – to achieve, to gain, to get somewhere, to accomplish, to not waste time – is the prime reason for why I am often so stressed, discontent and harsh on myself. I am not sure where this drive for efficiency has begun, although I have a hunch, so let's look at how “efficiency” has manifested in my life thus far.

When I look at my childhood the first instances where I have become stressed with time have been:

• when I have been playing / having fun and an adult comes and tells me that it's time to quit (because we're going home, because it's time to sleep - because there is something that I'm told is “more important”);
• when I had several hobbies as a child and became stressed because I felt like I didn't have enough leisure time:
• when the summer holidays seemed to never last long enough;
• when the school days felt too long (junior high onwards)

I was not a top student at school. My grades were mostly mediocre, but I excelled in some subjects that I was interested or already skilled in. I didn't have to study much until I got to high school where I had to read a lot to pass the courses. I have not been a passionate student until now that I have a better understanding of why I study and what the information can actually be used for.

Looking at my childhood and teenage years, it seems that I was actually pretty lazy. My parents didn't require me to be involved in housework and so I wasn't until my late teens. I used to take good care of my room, but as I fell deeper into an emotional slump in my teens I just stopped cleaning up completely. My room was an awful mess, a dark cave of dust and trash – a representation of the mental state I was in. This state of being continued for years even after I left home and started living on my own – actually, now that I think of it, it wasn't until I moved into this apartment 2 years ago that I made a pledge to keep my living area clean and livable and stuck to that decision for real.

All in all, I have not been that worried about getting stuff done or excelling in anything. I haven't really had a reason to. For the years that I have been floating around and trying to figure out what to do there has been an anxiety about the “clock ticking” - that I “should” be doing something, “should” be getting somewhere. And every time I have tried and failed I have become more depressed, more anxious and more desperate to succeed.

• The only things I have tried to excel in have been singing and acting. This is because I noticed that compared to others I was more skilled, which brought me to the conclusion that these are the things I “must do” - the path I was “destined” to take – but as I got into the competition to be on the top for real I gave up soon because I only saw my shortcomings but not how to practice to become better. I thought I sucked and wasn't good enough after all, which made me feel like I was no good at anything.

The ideal of “getting somewhere” has probably been developed as I have watched the people around me “succeed”. My peers from school have mostly advanced on the career path, some of them already graduated and working; my sister has gained notable positions in her work and other tokens of “success”; and I have felt more and more worthless comparing myself to other people. While focusing on the ideal of “what life should be” I have forgotten that life is not in big achievements but IN BREATH – that life lived HERE without achievements is more worthwhile than life with achievements without awareness of what life really is.

My drive for efficiency comes partially from trying to make up for all the years I perceive to have “gone to waste”, and partially from my increasing panic about the state of the world: “something needs to be done”.

Now, as I try to prove my worth by “not wasting time” I am doing it to an invisible audience of sorts, when in fact what it really is is self-judgement. By being efficient and “getting stuff done” I try to find validation from my environment so that I could stop judging myself for a while (this never lasts). The “something needs to be done” -point is also related to this, as I perceive that by “doing something” for the world I can buy myself validation from specific peer groups. So when I am efficient I find myself worthwhile, worth keeping myself alive, worth not hating.

How cruel can I be?

Me trying to make up for my past is in a way reasonable and in a way insane. The past is no longer here; it cannot be changed no matter how much I'd believe in karma and think that my current actions somehow outweigh my past actions. They do not. The consequences of the actions of the past carry out to this day as they ripple through time, and what I can do about the past is see what could be done to those consequences as they manifest NOW. I can face the ripples here, but the past cannot be changed or amended. I'd find it more advisable to focus on what kind of ripples I am creating right now into the future.

In a way it seems as if I was punishing myself. This has been a common theme in my life. Why do I find myself worthy of punishment? Why do I deserve suffering?

--

Alright, continuing on what I wrote last night.

It seems that I am looking at a deep-rooted pattern of self-judgement. There have been some specific major events and influences in my life that have contributed to this (man, I need to start making a timeline of my life to have clarity over this):

• early childhood: learning self-judgement and self-belittlement by observing my parents
• society: learning to fear that authorities would judge me and punish me (parents, teachers)
• primary school: friends turning against me and openly judging / mocking me
• family life: comparison to family members made me feel “less”
• junior high school: not succeeding in the increasing social games; ideals vs. my self-image

By the time I got to high school I was already completely fucked up, but there were some major events later that I used to lash out on myself even more:

• dropping out of polytechnic at the age of 18

• at the age of 19 the collapse of a long-term relationship
• applying to schools for 5 years without getting in
• fucking up all prospective relationships

But during these later events I was simply utilizing the patterns I had already solidified earlier.

I will now have a look at each one of these points specifically.

1. Early childhood: learning self-judgement and self-belittlement by observing my parents

Both my parents had learned to be harsh on themselves due to the circumstances they grew up in. My mother learned to belittle her own skills and capacity, and she would sometimes refer to herself as “too dumb” to do something. She never wanted to “make a number” of herself and would make an effort to be pleasing and likable to others. My father learned to feel guilty for not knowing something, so instead of admitting to not knowing he would lie that he did, presenting an image of omnipotence. He worked so much that he compromised his health and family relations, and he overworked himself because he believed it was justified to sacrifice his well-being to support his children. Because he was responsible for the lives of four children, he judged his life to matter “less”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that whenever I make a mistake the appropriate response is to blame and judge myself, as I had not realized that mistakes are an inevitable part of learning and thus not in fact a negative thing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that when a person is not skilled at something the appropriate measure is to avoid doing these things, always get somebody else to do them and to not practice these skills because of a belief that one is “unable” to learn them, as I had not realized that no skill is inherent (even though genetics may support some traits) and that almost any skill can be learned by anyone through coherent and consistent practice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to learn that I can avoid the things I am uncomfortable doing by defining myself “unable” to do them, as I had not realized that the discomfort is an indicator of something new I can learn and that discomfort is therefore not a negative thing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that when one meets other people one should be nervous (not breathing, tense, restless), hide the nervousness with smiling and laughing a lot and alter one's behavior to making constant compromises on oneself to try and keep the others in a good mood, as I had not realized that having other people around so that I can see myself better through feedback is in fact a good thing because then I will learn to know myself better.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn that when there are other people around I should try to not gather attention as every time I would have attention upon me I would get nervous and repeat the pattern described above, thus trying to remain “invisible” by not making noise or creating movement and getting angry at myself whenever I was unable to restrain myself and accidentally gathered attention.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my mother and learn who I should be in relation to other people: submissive, apologetic, “less than” others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when asked a question a person should always give an answer even if they didn't know what they were talking about, as I had not realized that relaying misinformation may have serious consequences and that it's better to give no information at all than to give misinformation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when a person is asked to do something they should never decline, at least not directly, as I had not realized that it is best for all to decline in self-honesty rather than to try and do too much and fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to learn that if people request something of me I am obligated to fulfill their requests, not realizing that I cannot help everyone as I am only one human being with limited resources.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when somebody asks me a question I should become tense.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when somebody asks me to do something I should get angry at the other, remember I'm obligated to help, suppress the anger with a sigh, become tense and tired and not decline the request directly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at my father and learn that when a person is responsible for many things it is OK to sacrifice one's own well-being.

Continuing tomorrow.

Day 380: Continuing on Waking up efficiently

15012014

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for sleeping “too much”, not questioning my definition of “too much sleep”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define 6 hours of sleep to be the ideal amount of sleep with no real evidence of this actually being the amount of sleep that my body needs to recharge, thus also defining less than 6 hours as “too little” sleep and more than 6-7 hours “too much” sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my ideals, not realizing that my ideals have not been constructed according to the physical reality to function as goals that support my living, but that I have instead constructed my ideals based on what others appear to be doing and what I ought to do to be as good as others – to be accepted by others – to not be less than others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I cannot construct my sleeping patterns efficiently, I will have failed as a person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to measure my worth based on how efficiently and supportively I structure my life, thus feeling like a failure when something doesn't work out (such as sleeping at the moment), not realizing that my definition of “supportive structuring” is based only on how much I get done / how much I achieve or accomplish, thus ignoring e.g. my physical and mental well-being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I sleep more than 7 hours I am “wasting time” that I could instead use on “getting stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my body might need more than 7 hours of sleep depending on what it's recovering from, and that forcing myself out of bed without sufficient rest is to compromise my health as well as my ability to “get stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that “getting stuff done” (work, study, whatever tasks I have) is sustainable when and as and ONLY when it's done in consideration of the physical reality – such as the well-being of my body, the physical organism I inhabit.

• I commit myself to stop compromising sleep, rest and recovery in order to achieve merit in the eyes of others.
• I commit myself to arrange myself enough time for sleep, rest and recovery; In cases where I need to momentarily compromise my sleep/rest, I commit myself to arrange myself time to recover from this compromise sufficiently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are two kinds of tiredness – a physical and a mental tiredness – and that when I wake up in the morning I am able to discern between the two, and thus also able to understand and decide whether to stay in bed or to get up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when I have woken up in the morning, to ignore my awareness of the fact that I am mentally tired and continue sleeping regardless of my awareness of this fact with the excuse that “I have nothing to do” - “I might as well sleep more”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I stay in bed out of mental tiredness I am escaping something in my reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that getting out of bed is a burdensome task, thus anticipating the moment of getting up and all the things I need to do, thus creating a desire to stay in bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning routine (washing up, yoga, cleaning the dishes) because I have found some of the tasks difficult and burdensome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning yoga exercise because often when I do it I need to push myself over a threshold out of my comfort zone even though I know my entire body will feel better after the yoga.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to the resistance towards yoga, thus skipping some mornings and eventually not doing it at all, thus also making it easier for me to give in to the resistance to get out of bed at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that expansion and growth requires constant pushing and discomfort before it becomes an effortless part of my living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to integrate yoga and exercise into my living – a form of physical self-care – I need to unwind the roots and habits of stagnation I have grown and become tangled up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that slouching, dragging my feet, sitting down and being still in the morning when I wake up is a habit of not moving – a habit that I can change and replace with another – and that I have learned this method of waking up by observing the people I grew up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my family's culture of waking up – making oneself as comfortable as possible to “soften the blow” – is not the only possible way of starting one's day.

• I commit myself to do my yoga routine each morning, unless I am physically unable to do it (sickness etc), as I now see, realize and understand that getting used to this small push every morning I get myself used to discomfort, thus supporting myself with all situations where I need to deal with discomfort in order to grow and expand. (This is pretty cool now that I think of it this way!)
• I commit myself to expand my yoga routine little by little, adding one move to the routine when and as the routine needs more physical challenge.
• I commit myself to experiment with other forms of morning exercise, such as taking a walk or running.
• I commit myself to do something physical every morning before I have breakfast.
• I commit myself to explore what else I could do before I have breakfast, for example writing, studying and meditation.

Also, an idea I got in the last post that I want to try out:

• When and as I do not have anything to wake up to the following morning - such as a meeting, a lecture or work - I commit myself to go through my tasks for the day in the previous evening and decide on the first task I will tackle the following day.

It's been working out well so far!

Note to self: the word "efficient" has a negative tone to me, and using it here makes it feel as if waking up "efficiently" couldn't be enjoyable but that I'd be gritting my teeth while doing it, lol. I'll return to this word and the concept of efficiency in posts to come.

Days 377-378: Dissatisfied with life

09-10012014

Yes, it's just me. / http://mentalcomix.wordpress.com/

Ever since my partner left to travel a couple of days ago I've been hit with heavy anxiety and depression. It has made me crazy when I'm at home by myself and jammed when I'm out with other people. I had trouble being at work because I didn't really know how to be around people: it took me many hours to move myself out of the state I was in to start to enjoy the presence of people. Today at university specific triggers caused me to get very depressed, emotional and anti-social. I walked through some of the things during the day but was still feeling very heavy and tired. I called that state “being in deep waters” - a phrase I've probably picked up from a friend who once used the same words to describe his depression.

When I got home I was relieved to be by myself, but soon the walls started caving in and I again got anxious because I was alone. I reached a breaking point where I started talking through the points that had been surfacing and releasing the accumulated emotions through crying, shouting and movement. This worked surprisingly well: I calmed down, my state of being stabilized (walls were no longer crashing but standing quite firm, lol) and as I started going through all the things I had just voiced I had a bunch of points to write down and examine. I will now go through some of the points at once as they intertwine.

“My life as it is feels unsatisfying”

I had a very hard time admitting this to myself, because I feel like an immense failure saying it. Everything in my life is apparently well: I've got a place in a university and I don't have any tuition fees to pay; I've got a job that I enjoy and brings me enough money; I have plenty of friends; I've got all the basic necessities of life covered; I've got a direction that I am walking towards. Nothing should be wrong – yet, something seems to not be right.

All of my adult life I have been trying to find myself a direction to go to. I've been working to survive and applying to different schools every year, usually art schools because I've had a passion towards many fields of art. A couple of years ago I decided to move my focus from art – a form of psychotherapy – into the system itself, which causes the need for psychotherapy in the first place. Instead of working with the symptoms I wanted to work with the causes, the actual illness that makes the world a place of inequality and separation. I chose to focus on the field of education, an effective tool for prevention, which is what I'm studying now in university.

One way I've also been looking for fulfillment of sorts has been through relationships. I used to live in a big family, and when I left home to live on my own I moved together with my second boyfriend. I was happy to be living with someone, but it also became a point of dependency and addiction where I became financially and socially dependent on my boyfriend, thus eventually taking the relationship into a breaking point where we broke up and moved apart. I've lived alone ever since and I've been fine with it, up until 1-2 years ago when I saw some of my friends living in communes and shared houses and realized how much more fun life would be when living with other people. I created a craving for a “family”, not necessarily one of a couple and their children, but of any people, a community of sorts. But as I realized it was not possible for me at the time I thought that there would be a time for it, and that I should just enjoy the time I have on my own.

The two questions I'm looking at here now are:

• Am I studying the right subject?
• Can a person be fully happy living alone?

I've asked myself the first question before, and I have told myself that if I am genuinely enjoying whatever it is that I study and finding it relevant and useful, it “doesn't matter” what the topic is. I think that education science will prove itself useful to me in ways that I cannot yet foresee, because it can also be combined with any form of art or adapted into any setting where people are involved. In any case what I study now is going to give me much needed perspective and knowledge.

I guess one thing that I need to keep in mind while studying is that I should not be afraid to change what it is I'm doing. I have a habit of planning waaaaay into the future, but I cannot really know if any of it will happen or if any of it is advisable at all. I'm kinda pondering between the options to either step into the system and play the game that the social construct labeled “LIFE” is, or to focus on creating my life into one that I find enjoyable and worth living – because, frankly, right now life does not feel “worth living” in those respects. It may be the wave of depression speaking, but there is a deep dissatisfaction in me where life just seems to suck balls. This may be me separating myself from life in each breath and each moment as I lose myself into grand visions and get disappointed when I do not see immediate results.

But I'm guessing one could both “play the game” AND create a life that one can enjoy. Depends on how one plays the game, I guess: I once met a guy who was dedicated to become a prime minister and thus had given up all hope of ever having a fulfilling partnership – although this may have just been his helplessness, as even though politics is tough many do still manage a family alongside all of it.

So I guess that I'm just going to have to live through studying, work, career and all that moment by moment, and grasp whatever opportunities come along my way when and as they do. We cool? We cool.

Now, about living alone. Since my partner left the time I spent living with him compares like a slice of heaven to these past couple of days, which is just insane and I know it. I have recognized a part of what makes it, though: being able to share myself to another being, because another being is a dynamic mirror to myself whereas the walls of my apartment never respond, lol. I've noticed that now that he's gone I speak maybe a tenth of what I did when he was around, which has a huge effect on how much I communicate with myself: I don't talk to myself until I reach some sort of a crisis where I have to talk something out, so usually I just fall into this slump where I forget to ask myself how I'm doing. This, now, may be a great moment to learn more about self-communication and how I can become self-sustained in that respect, so that I would not be dependent on living with others in order to see and know myself, even though living with others may make that process a lot more efficient. I may have to live on my own some time yet, so I need to learn how to be my own mirror, my own partner and my own conversationist while there's nobody here to assist me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my life feel dissatisfying by creating big visions of what I should become and then getting disappointed when I appear to be “getting nowhere”, not realizing that even though I am actually making progress I am making myself blind to it by wanting to see grandiose things when progress is actually about doing small things within consistency.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I should “get somewhere” in life to be successful, not realizing that even though in the “game of life” (the social constructs of the world) “getting somewhere” is an asset that will gain me things, in the actual physical life beyond the social constructs very little is in fact required for life to be enjoyable and worthwhile.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel as if my life is a failure when I seem to be failing at the “game of life”, not realizing that the two “lives” here are not the same even though I participate in both.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attempt to play the “game of life” (participate in the system) without first being stable in the physical life and without knowing all the rules of the “game”.

• I commit myself to prioritize stabilizing in the physical life and to participate in the “game of life” - the system – only by the requirements of the physical life.
• I commit myself to explore the basic components of the physical life – nutrition, exercise, socializing, creation and work, self-expression – to see how I can balance them out in my own living.
• I commit myself to further educate myself about the world to learn about life itself as well as the “game of life”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about what kind of a professional I will become, afraid that I will become such a mismatch of skills and knowledge that I will have no use in the society, not realizing that what I can do may not have a distinct profile in my mind or in anybody's mind (as I will not be a stereotypical ballet dancer, firefighter or a classroom teacher – to be honest, I don't think any living person's actually a purely stereotypical presentation of a profession) and that what I can and will do to contribute to society, to humanity and to the world is something that I will create every step of the way as I move myself in this reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want certainty of “what I'll become” in the form of a clear career direction or profession that I could use to define myself with, not realizing that this self-definition would limit me in my choice of action as I would choose on whether something fits my profile or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will have no place in the world as I have been unable to label myself and assign myself a place, not realizing that to an extent not defining myself is actually supportive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will perceive me to be a failure if I do not “have a place” in the world, not realizing that I am again confusing life with the “game of life” where “having a place” is an asset, and that even if others were to make the same confusion it does not make it any more real.

• I commit myself to slow myself down to enjoy studying for as long as it feels interesting and enjoyable.
• I commit myself to not force myself to study things that I find no interest towards, and to instead focus on things that I am motivated to study.
• I commit myself to trust myself to be able to create myself positions in life where I can contribute to the world with all of my skills and knowledge.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my life feel dissatisfying by communicating with myself only with a few selected people, thus not really being intimate with myself and supporting myself when I am not in the presence of those few people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for not asking me how I'm doing in my life, not realizing that it is not others' responsibility to open me up but mine.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am not satisfied with life because I have clammed myself up from most people, thus not giving myself a chance to experience the social field in the scope that it could be utilized: as a mirror to myself and to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to require other people in order to see myself, not realizing that even though self-reflection is more efficient with other people, others are not in fact required for me to see myself – it simply requires a bit more effort when I am by myself.

• I commit myself to ask myself “how are you” at least once a day, preferably more than once.
  • I commit myself to stop, breathe and ask myself “how are you” every night before I go to sleep, and I commit myself to reserve enough time and physical comfort for this exercise.
• I commit myself to write on at least 4 days of a week. (As writing daily is not working for me at the moment, I will instead commit to a smaller amount that I am certain I can in fact live up to.)
• I commit myself to investigate how exactly I live with myself to see how I could give myself enough attention and care.

Fascinating stuff! I'll keep on walking this state of being to see what comes up. The depression and anxiety have dissipated for now, which sure as hell makes life a bit nicer, lol.

Day 370: SF on Sex & the fear of failure

21122013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 369: Sex & the fear of failure

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “good sex” (success) and “bad sex” (failure) as ideas of what sex is / can be, not realizing that these ideas are not actually real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “good sex” as such where all participants are satisfied according to their expectations about sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the expectations I have / others have about sex, or the fact that we expect anything out of sex at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “bad sex” as such where not all participants are satisfied according to their expectations about sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the phenomenon of having expectations about sex in the form of ideals, fantasies, images, plans and assumptions, thus believing the disappointment when sex is unsatisfactory/bad/failed and the satisfaction when sex is good/successful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when/as I have felt like the sex I've had has been successful I have in fact created the experience myself through my expectations and that no such thing as “doing sex right” exists in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when/as I have felt that the sex I've had has been a failure I have in fact created the experience myself through my expectations and that no such thing as “doing sex wrong” exists in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are no right or wrong ways of having sex in the physical reality – unless one has a practical goal that needs to take the physical reality into consideration (such as reproducing, lol, then you don't really have that many options).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal of what sex “should be” like through the images I have been exposed to willingly and unwillingly through the media of the culture I have lived in (TV shows, movies, photography, fashion, magazines, literature, visual arts, music), not realizing that none of the images I believe to be sex is not in fact sex but an idea about sex – a conceptual painting of a dimension of the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when and as sex is what I have labeled as bad/unsatisfactory/failed, the consequence of this will be that my partner will be disappointed, blame me for their disappointment, judge me to be a failure and decide to invest their time on someone “better” than me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create the fear of this trigger-reaction pattern based on the images I have been exposed to by the media, not realizing that this, too, is an idea about how people behave and what they expect of each other and not the actual reality of human behavior itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I can affect human behavior through my application within the moment of interaction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my partner leaving me because I have learned, believed and perceived that it would be a bad thing to be alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my belief that being alone is a bad thing, thus not realizing that both being single and being in a relationship have their own benefits and limitations – the conditions are simply different with differing opportunities available.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when sex is what I have labeled as good/satisfactory/successful my partner will be content, project their positive feelings on me and believe me to be the source of their satisfaction, believe me to be a worthwhile person and decide to continue to invest their time on me because I'm “better” than others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by always anticipating my partner's response to the “quality” of sex I keep the relationship a target of a constant gamble where the platform of the relationship is not stable at all as it has not been built on a mutual agreement but is instead based on competition.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create my relationships into a place of uncertainty and instability as I have believed and perceived that the relationship depends on my “success” in sex, thus building my tension, anxiety, fear, stress and pressure about sex and thus causing myself to very often “fail” in sex as I have been doing it through tension and fear for others instead of doing it relaxed and open for myself.

I commit myself to focus on communicating directly and self-honestly about sex with the people whom I have sex with, as I have seen, realized and understood that when and as I communicate about the things I fear their control over me dissolves, thus enabling practical correction.

I commit myself to explore sex through physical movement and the senses instead of the ideas I have about sex.

I commit myself to map out and walk through the ideas I have about sex – the conceptual reality of layered shit that I have piled on top of the simplicity of the physical reality.