Day 372: Taking angry reactions personally

27122013

During the christmas holidays I was spending time with my family, and while we were busy cooking I noticed something interesting about my relationship towards my sister. There was a pan that I would have needed for cooking something and she had already used it for something else, to which I reacted by indirectly and jokingly blaming her for it. She reacted to my words with an angry and defensive manner, which is how she usually reacts to (unexpected / unprepared for) criticism, blame and accusations. I have usually taken her defensive reactions personally and questioned her tendency for being so aggressive, mainly because her reaction has felt threatening to me. But now as I was looking back on the situation I realized how and why she has developed the habit of violently defending herself (a history of bullying and low self-esteem). I realized that me taking her reaction personally is not really helping her at all and is just adding fuel to the fire. I see that in order for me to be of support to her and assist her in stabilizing and seeing her own tendencies I need to stop counter-reacting to her reactions and see them for what they are: remnants of a fearful past that need not be any longer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my sister's aggression personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to my sister's aggression because I have perceived and believed aggressive people to be dangerous.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my sister's aggression means that she thinks less of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my sister's aggression has nothing to do with me and that her aggression is in fact her expression of who she is at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for my sister's approval / acceptance, thus reacting with fear when it appears as if she does not approve / accept me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my interpretation of my sister's aggression is not in fact true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my sister's aggression with irritation (“she's doing it again”) and to blame her for my irritation (“she shouldn't do that”), not realizing that I create my irritation by thinking that her reaction is “wrong”, as I have not seen, realized and understood that her reaction is an outflow of who she has become, and that it is not “wrong” or “right” but simply an indicator of who she is at the moment, an outburst of the reality we live in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label “wrong” all the things in my reality that “ruin the world” for me – that do not fit the ideal image of the world that I have built in my mind – as by labeling them “wrong” I create an excuse to remove these things from the reality.

When and as my sister (or anyone) expresses aggression, I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that her reaction is an outflow of who she has become through everything that she has went through in her life. I remind myself that to be of assistance and support to her I cannot exert my own reaction onto her, but that I need to instead let go of all my reactions through self-forgiveness and breathing and become a stable point in her field of experience.

When and as I react to my sister's (or anyone's) aggression, I stop, I breathe and I immediately focus on my breathing to ground and stabilize myself in the physical reality. I remind myself that in order to support the other I need to let go of my own reactions. I remind myself that my sister's reaction is not caused by me and that it is an outflow of everything she has accumulated during her lifetime. I breathe and release my reaction in self-forgiveness. I take another look at the situation from her perspective and I direct myself in the situation according to what would possibly be supportive to her.

I commit myself to practice becoming a stable point for others.

Days 367-368: What would you do if you only had one day?

12-13122013

Nature showing us how to express affection. No fancy words needed!

Today I came to think of the phrase “live every day as if it was your last”. First I read a facebook post where a friend shared her realization about the unpredictability of life while supporting her friend in an emergency room: you'll never know when your loved ones will be gone forever, so you'd better tell them how you feel about them while you still can. Next, I saw a video where the average amount of a person's living days was visualized with jelly beans, and where at the end of the video only one jelly bean was left and the following question was asked: “what would you do if you had only one day? What will you do today?”

I answered that question myself and I was surprised at the things I said. (Personal stuff.) Mainly the things I thought I would do involved contacting people and enjoying my last moments doing things with them. I then asked myself: well, hold on, why should I not do these things anyway, even if I would not be dying? Couldn't I just call these people up anyway?

What I faced then was a wall of excuses. “They probably have better things to do.” “They'd think you're just wasting their time.” Most of it revolved around fear. The activities I thought of were purely recreational, and I was afraid that if I'd live my life asking people to join me in fun stuff like that I would be judged as lazy, impractical, childish, irresponsible – a foolish hippie not willing to work.

But MAN would I enjoy life where I could do fun stuff! With others!

So I'm thinking how my life would be different if I would express my feelings towards people more openly and initiate activities more frequently than now. It would certainly be a lot more social and my relations with others would be built on a foundation of self-honesty (which I think is the only way to establish solid trust in another). Why am I not doing this already?

I realize that motivational videos like the one I saw play a lot on the fear of death and loss: when the number of my days is clearly shown to me, I react with a slight panic and disregard my responsibilities just to “enjoy while I can”. What I am looking for, though, is a sustainable way of living. I need to integrate the social into my life in a balanced way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing to another how I experience him/her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my affection towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my gratitude towards another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing my appreciation for another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear expressing any form of positive experience I have had towards other people, because I have feared that I would then face a negative reaction from the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself through self-expression because I have associated self-expression with events from my childhood, where my self-expression was responded to with actions that I reacted negatively to.

[A memory from 1^st or 2^nd grade: there was a boy in my class I liked a lot. I never expressed this to him because I didn't really know what to do about the things I felt – I'd never received any sort of guidance concerning relationships. Once during class there was a moment where something we had in common (a toy) was unexpectedly exposed and we would have had a chance to bond over it; however, we didn't. I expressed my interest towards the commonality and was waiting for him to meet me half-way, whereas he sort or “retreated”, withdrew himself, not taking the opportunity and not interacting with me. I thought that this meant he did not like me at all, I felt ashamed and I never tried to talk with him again. I did not take into consideration that he may have withdrawn because of the situation (a boy and a girl bonding with each other during class would have required hell-class bravery and defiance of the social code), or because he, too, was clueless on what to do about his feelings. Because I entered the social world with no guidelines on what to do and how people actually work, I have built my fear of rejection based on possible misinterpretations like this.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I express my positive experience of another person, the other will respond in such a way that I might interpret as “judgement”, “rejection” or “resentment” - not realizing that always interpreting things like this is a very narrow viewpoint that does not take into consideration the entire reality of things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when a person responds to my self-expression by withdrawing themselves, it is not because I have done something “wrong” but because of whatever inner processes the entire situation has triggered within them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for the way another person responds to his/her environment, thus reacting to the other person with fear of losing control, helplessness and panic as my world isn't what I would want it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my self-blame, collapsing inwards automatically with my reaction, not stopping to breathe and realize that “HOLD ON, I am taking personally something that is not mine at all”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by believing another person's withdrawal is my fault (because I am not enough), I am NOT supporting and assisting the other to see and question the mind system that made him/her withdraw in the first place, but that I am instead supporting him/her to carry on living within and as the mind system (because he/she is not enough – through my example I show that self-diminishment is acceptable).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stand my ground when and as I have expressed myself and another has withdrawn as I have not really stood within my self-expression as I have lived as self-doubt, self-denial and self-resentment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for validation for myself from outside of myself as I have not really accepted, embraced or trusted myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the behavior of others is caused by me when in fact every individual creates their own behavior by choosing and authorizing their way of moving according to external stimuli.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself from participating in social living because I have been afraid of rejection, justifying my seclusion by judging social activities and thus settling for my solitude.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my wish to participate in social living and make myself believe that “I don't need it” as I have been afraid of taking the “risk” of exposing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that exposing myself through self-expression – by for example communicating to another how I experience him/her – is in fact NOT a risk where I put my self-worth on line but an opportunity where I don't have to lose myself (as I am always here!) but can in fact only gain and learn new things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to fear by choosing to not express myself to another when I hesitate, when I could instead breathe, return myself HERE and remind myself that the unknown is a window of opportunity leaping through which will always benefit me in the form of new experiences to be learned from.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to pass by that moment of truth, the moment of fear and resistance, with excuses and justifications, thus not gifting myself with the opportunity to grow by pushing through the fear.

I commit myself to experiment an give myself opportunities to grow out of my old habits by sharing with each person in my life how I experience them, be it in the form of feedback about their qualities or as a statement of how I feel about them. [Be this my christmas present to all!]

I commit myself to explore ways and chances of expressing gratitude.

I commit myself to support and assist myself within the paralyzing moment of fear and resistance by breathing, grounding and reminding myself that change happens one small movement at a time, one word at a time, one letter at a time, one breath a time – by bringing my focus absolutely on my breath, nothing else, and moving myself relying on my breath and physical existence, as my physical existence will not shudder even though my conceptual realities tremble, crumble, scream and explode.

I commit myself to support and assist others to walk through their process by remaining stable when and as they react instead of taking their reaction personally and counter-reacting, AND in order to do this, I commit myself to further investigate why and how I take things personally.

Day 366: Reconstructing femininity - softness as a strength

09122013

I've had issues with femininity for as long as I can remember. I have gathered from photographs that as a small child I enjoyed dressing up in princess costumes mainly under the influence of my sister, but this phase passed by the time I went to school. I wore very practical clothing, I valued intelligence, I resented girly pastimes like gossiping, I didn't like the way girls interacted with each other (mainly because I was bullied – I never saw the positive side of femininity).

This point comes down to my mother and her mother (and possibly all the women down the line). My mother's mother married man who – possibly under the influence of war – became violent, aggressive and unpredictable. This is seen in my mother, who has always been meek, compliant, vulnerable and emotional. Her emotionality has been introverted, collapsing inwards and occasionally exploding outwards, as if she has been afraid of letting her emotions show. She has trouble standing up to people (including herself) and looks for fault in herself. When my parents broke up a few years ago, she had immense trouble facing my father and discussing the matter. Looking at her life, she appears to have preferred men who show a clear male dominance which she can submit to. She has little belief in her own skills and talents and needs a lot of encouraging.

Now, keep in mind that my description of my mother is the way I perceive her. She might describe the same things completely differently. The point of me describing her is to map out who I am, who I have been, where I have grown up, what burden of the past I perceive myself to carry – and what points exactly I am working on and why. All of what I described of her above are the qualities I adopted from her while growing up under her influence; what happened as I see it.

My mother was also a prime example of the positive sides of femininity – caring, compassion, support, communication – but they were overshadowed by the negative, at least for me. My sister has told me she always appreciated our mother's example and she grew up to be prominently feminine, so we have experienced her and taken influence from her differently, probably because we were born 9 years apart. I am guessing her self-suppression had accumulated and developed by the time I was born.

So, many issues have spawned from this. I have been insecure, introverted and extremely fearful. I have developed a fear of men, which has had far-stemming consequences, such as a physical inability to have sex, which I have worked on consciously for some years now. (I recently realized that this manifestation in the flesh may come from really far: for all I know my mother herself could have been conceived as a result of violent sex, knowing the character of her father.) My fear of men has developed into hatred and bitterness. I have been very shy around people. I have been constantly concerned about being accepted by others, because I had no sense of self-worth without external validation. I have been largely unable to communicate because I have had a paralyzing fear of being exposed and judged. Paralysis, all in all, is what it has been: an all-encompassing state of tension.

The reason I am writing about this (again) is because I am getting closer to, well, how to call it, a “breakthrough” of sorts. Through practical application I have been able to approach and interact with men who trigger the fear of men in me through their somehow apparent “masculinity” - a profound “maleness” in some part of their presence and/or expression. I have previously had a panicky need to protect myself from masculine expression by becoming masculine myself, be it through speech, movement, behavior or tone of discussion, or simply by distancing myself or completely escaping from the person. I am starting to reach a point where I can locate my breathing in the middle of this reaction, thus stopping my defense mechanisms, and where I can begin to explore how to “take in” masculinity – how to be the feminine counterpart – how to let go, give in, submit. To use sex as a metaphor, I once read somewhere that whereas masculinity is about pushing in and penetrating, femininity is to wrap oneself around the penetrator. It is this duality between hardness and softness that I am fascinated by, because I have never learned how to be soft. To survive in a male-dominated world I have hardened myself, metaphorically and literally.

I am glad that I have now had opportunities to investigate this point in action – although it's not surprising at all, as we summon that which we are ready for. I am dancing around the edges of my comfort zone and it is exhilarating and nerve-wrecking a the same time, lol. I think self-forgiveness on the topic would support me with the practical application, so that's what I'll do next.

Day 358: SF on "Who should I be?" - group work and competitiveness

25112013

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create myself a “choir personality” - a survival system to get me through the challenge of a new environment – within which I am social, active, funny, encouraging and driven by the desire to succeed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to be a good singer within the choir as I have been afraid of being the “weak link” in a group.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to develop the fear of being the “weakest” in a group out of childhood experiences in school gymnastics classes where I did not measure up to other kids.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear group work because I might appear the “weakest” (a loser).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to work in a group when and as I have believed and perceived I would be one of the “strong players” (winners).
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I enjoy group work and that I am good at group work, not realizing that my prominent experiences from group work are such where I have been a “strong player” and thus have felt confident and good about myself, which has made it easy for me to feel good about the work done in a group.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have only perceived myself to be “good at group work” when I have been “winning”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at the many occasions when I have been a “weak link” in a group and consequently not a functioning team player (fearful, competitive, spiteful).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to superimpose my self-standards (being appreciated by others) on the group I am working with, expecting and demanding them to be what I want them to be so that I wouldn't face bad consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “failing” in front of an audience: doing something that will break the illusion of an artist/performer as a god-like superhuman that cannot fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I fail in front of an audience that expects me to succeed I will be judged.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that every individual in an audience expects me to succeed / to not fail.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when an audience member's expectations are not met by disrupting an experience with something unexpected, all the individuals in the audience will react with disdain, irritation and/or anger and believe and perceive that it is my fault that they reacted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a stereotype of an audience member / a spectator, believing and perceiving that everyone who passively looks at a performance of any kind does not want to be interrupted or challenged because they expect to be allowed to remain passive and find it vexing when it is not allowed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to label this act of allowing another to remain within their comfort zone while providing the kind of stimuli they expect as entertainment, not questioning the need to be entertained nor the profession of entertaining.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a learning process comprises almost completely of mistakes, and that making mistakes is thus not a negative thing as it can be used to develop understanding and skill.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear others seeing my mistakes, not realizing that others witnessing my learning process is not a bad thing but is in fact educational for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if a performance goes exactly as planned, everything that I'm yet to master is still visible to the audience that sees me, whether they're consciously taking it in or not and whether I'm aware of my misgivings or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that hiding my mistakes and misgivings is not possible and that if I try I will only show others my fear of failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though it would benefit the entire choir if the people doing the gigs would do their job carefully, if I press the point through my fear of failure I will only create resentment, and that even if I discussed the point through practicality I cannot ultimately make others perform well but can only focus on my own application.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will fail in life (not survive).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire succeeding in life (surviving).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a linear story in which the end result is what matters and defines how well my life has been lived, not realizing that life exists only in the NOW moment, within and as this moment of consciousness where I as the will within this organism called the human body am in constant motion, and that life is not measured only in the end result at the moment of my death somewhere in the future but in every moment that I am alive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that life is a competition where I need to succeed in order to “make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to become a competent human being I do NOT need to outrun everyone else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I attempt to outrun others out of fear of losing to others, I am abusing myself, eating myself up with fear and stress and thus sabotaging myself and making way for my own failure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is possible to become skilled and competent by becoming what the skill requires – changing who I am and living out the consequence – instead of pushing myself towards an ideal through self-judgement without figuring out the practical steps to get there.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though life is about “competing with myself” to see and realize what my potential is and understand how to live up to it, life is in fact NOT about competing with other living beings because we as a whole form one big living organism – humanity / the Earth / the universe - which functions best if its particles work together and not for themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I live according to my self-interest at the expense of other life forms, competing to become the best and the biggest, I am the cancer cell in this organism feeding on other cells, either taking down the entire organism as the cancer spreads through my influence or being eventually removed so that the organism may keep on living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that competitiveness is considered a positive trait only within the human consciousness system - in the conceptual reality we live out through our minds – and that when looking at nature it is not competitiveness that we see in ecosystems that thrive but co-operation, development, support and sharing that leads to progress and prosperity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the human species has proven itself to be the “king” of all species by being competitive within itself and with other life forms and thus conquering land, developing technology and making scientific breakthroughs, and that competitiveness is thus a positive trait – not realizing that while doing so the human species has eaten up most of the Earth's resources and thrived at the expense of ALL LIFE even though it appears as if the human species has been “successful”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my desire to compete.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself goals on what I need to achieve during my life as a measurement of success, feeling that if I would now die without achieving those goals I would have failed in my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my life will have had worth only if I achieve something “big” (a clear improvement in the field of life I am able to influence).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to imagine life being a game of tasks of different sizes, difficulties and rewards, thus giving bigger value to tasks that are “bigger” (improving the world) and not valuing the tasks that are “small” (breathing) – not realizing that since all that exists is the NOW moment, what may or may not happen in the future is not relevant, but only what I do HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if my focus is in the future, my focus is not in the present moment in my present actions, and that my actions are thus half-assed as my focus is not fully HERE.

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I commit myself to explore group work from the perspective of co-operation instead of competition.

I commit myself to investigate how power dynamics within a group could be supportive for all, so that the “strongest” would utilize their strength to assist the “weakest”.

I commit myself to map out how I manifest competitiveness and how I manifest co-operation within the groups I am working in at the moment (choir, theatre, university, dancing group, work, organizations, friends and all the sub-groups within these).

I commit myself to explore performing situations from the perspective of allowing others to witness my learning process through whatever mistakes and misgivings I manifest.

I commit myself to continue mapping out who I believe and perceive I should be and how I apply myself according to this belief/perception, and to thus investigate what is causing me to feel burdened, resulting in the pain/friction in my shoulders.

I commit myself to make a written note of all situations where I see myself competing (fear of failure / desire to succeed) and to investigate them with written or spoken introspection.

I commit myself to teach myself to map out my goals through practical steps and realistic timelines, starting with the projects I am working on now (e.g. studying).

Day 351: What is friendship?

15112013

I had a discussion with a friend and I was left restless.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing a friend.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make myself dependent of another being and thus fear losing her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I fear losing is not the person itself but what she represents to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that only one person can ever be whatever it is she represents to me and that if I lose her I lose what she represents.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, through our shared history and my experiences with and of this person, to paint an icon within my mind with her shape, representing integrity, intelligence, good will, purity and commitment – the “back bone” I've never perceived myself to have – and to create a relationship to that icon where I “lack” what the icon represents and where I “need” the icon to have a “back bone” in my life – and as this icon is based on my interpretation of a real, living person, to want this person to be in my life / fear not having this person in my life because I believe and perceive that without her I am unable to have those good qualities she represents.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I am “unable” to have integrity, intelligence, good will, purity and commitment in myself because building and growing these qualities is hard work, thus giving up and making myself helpless because I have relied on others to “fill in the gaps” where I choose to believe I am “not good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to gather the kind of people around me who have what I lack, not utilizing that chance to learn from them and develop new traits, but instead abusing their company by expecting them to “cover for me” where I am unwilling to develop myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing a long-time friend because to me my relationship with her represents commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork – the kind of a relationship I would prefer to have with others as well, but haven't yet had that many chances to practice in long-term.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing this friendship because losing it would tell me that nothing lasts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hope that this friendship would last so that the illusion of permanence would remain.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear facing the fact that everything is temporary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that within this physical life I am the only permanent factor – the “eye” of the storm – and that everything around me (and within me!) is in constant flux, as if spinning in a tornado.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for stability from outside of myself, not realizing that if I hold onto something spinning within that tornado (all the components of life) I will fall from balance – the eye of the storm – and that the only sustainable way to balance myself is to find balance within and as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork are NOT dependent on the individuals I interact with but on WHO I AM within interaction.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that when and as WHO I AM is in accordance with commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork, I will create these qualities no matter who I interact with, and that I will thus never lack these qualities in my living as long as I incorporate them into my structure.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely on a few relationships to sustain commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork in my life, not looking for ways to learn how to sustain them by myself within myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my words will insult another, which would result in me “losing” her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I might “lose” my friend by saying something she will react to in such a way where she will decide to keep a “safe” distance to me to avoid further unpleasant reactions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my friend will use her reactions to my words to paint an image of me in her mind (a classification, stereotype, “this is who she is”) which would limit her in my presence and/or create a resentment towards me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel annoyed by the possibility that my friend will become alienated because it would be based on an unfair judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being misinterpreted by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being denied access to life's resources (here: friendship) because of who others perceive and believe me to be, as this is how the world of relationships mainly functions at the moment: access granted or denied based on who one is believed to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust the fact that the (only?) way to correct those who have decided to see me through a certain filter is to live as who I am and show who I am through my living, my words, movements and actions – and that even then others might choose to not see, which I cannot affect as I cannot enter and move another being, but only myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my words might have been chosen poorly, not realizing that if I would have stopped to re-write my experience from the starting point of not wanting to aggravate the other, my actions would have been manipulation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider limiting my self-expression because I fear that the other would blame her reactions to “my” words onto me. (The words aren't really mine, even though the intent I use them with is; a symbol is just a symbol and can be interpreted in many ways.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though the careful placement of words (directing and manipulating the other's assumed reactions) might be necessary in some situations – such as when playing the political game this world is immersed in - I do not want to build my friendships (or any relationships!) into such places where I'd need to be constantly walking through a mine field.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear building my friendships into places of unsuppressed self-expression by expressing myself unsuppressed within them, because I have feared that others will react negatively to this unconventionality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I act out of fear (choose my words so that the other will not react negatively) I will create fear (by upholding a relationship that is based on comfort instead of actual support).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that telling the other what they want to hear is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that downplaying another's flaws is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that giving praise on another's strengths is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that agreeing with another because I fear disagreement (conflict / possibility of loss) is NOT supportive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that avoiding conflict is NOT support.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that actual support is based on helping each other to grow towards our full potential, and that actual support is NOT pleasant and comfortable but is in fact difficult, challenging and, mostly, full of conflict and disagreement which needs to be constantly processed and sorted out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear when a friendship gets to the point where supporting each other gets very challenging, not realizing that I (as we both) have all the tools, capacity and the will to agree on how and why we support each other, and that my fear of loss is just me lifting my hands in the air and saying “I can't do it! Too much! It's gonna crash!” and succumbing to helplessness when in fact I am not helpless to direct the situation – as if I was driving a car, seeing a tree some miles up the road, lifting my hands from the wheel and saying “No use, it's gonna hit anyway!”, when I could in fact just place my hands on the wheel and direct the car to not hit the tree. lol

I commit myself to explore what I find respectable, admirable and praiseworthy in my friend to see what I could develop in myself.

I commit myself to note and write down the qualities that I find respectable, admirable and praiseworthy in others and to reflect them upon myself to see how I could develop in these qualities.

I commit myself to explore how to build relationships from the very first moment and every moment from then onwards based on self-expression, commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork.

I commit myself to re-assess my current relationships to see if they are in fact based on self-expression, commitment, communication, support, unity, respect and teamwork, and I commit myself to find ways to introduce the qualities that are missing into each relationship through my own application, not by demanding others to do shit.

I commit myself to support and assist myself with the commitment above with writing.

I commit myself to work on releasing my fears, so that when I give support to others it would not be an act of fear but an act of simply being.

Days 345-346: "Doing nothing" and heaviness - SF on day 344

3110-02112013

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility to direct myself in each and every breath of my living by escaping the feeling of heaviness I have created through self-judgement into activities that amount to nothing in this reality that is shared by all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when these moments of curling up into a comfortable, solitary spot to do something with no substance or relevance occur, I am not directing myself within and as the principle of “what is best for all” but that I am instead directed by the desires I have created within and as self-interest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-interest doesn't actually bring about what is best for me because it doesn't consider what is best for all, which is directly tied to what is best for me as an individual.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the word “self-interest” means self-care, not realizing that when my focus (interest) is solely on myself I am not considering myself as a part of a whole but rather perceiving myself to BE the whole, and that when I do not consider myself as the particle of reality that I really am, I am not taking care of myself in the best possible way but neglecting some (possibly important) perspectives on how to care for my well-being by considering the entire reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for a release from the experience of heaviness - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire to “do nothing” to compensate for “doing everything”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create myself the feeling of “doing everything” (being burdened) by judging myself to be “not good enough” - doing too little too slowly and too poorly – never doing “enough” and feeling like I'd have to do “everything” to be “good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I cannot do everything because it is physically impossible, and that my standard of reaching all of my goals is unrealistic and thus not supportive at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself goals that are unsupportive.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not utilize planning and setting goals as a structure to motivate me and support me to finish difficult long-term tasks, but that I have instead used planning and goals as a measurement of my own worth, mainly to tell myself how “little” I am now and how “much” I could be in the future, not realizing that even though the purpose of this method has also been to motivate me to act, the source of motivation in this method is fear (“what I am now is bad – I must become something better to avoid consequences”) instead of motivation coming from the realization of who and what I am and what it is I am capable of.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use self-judgement to motivate myself to become “better”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that self-judgement is necessary for me to learn from my mistakes – that I must show some kind of “regret” for my mistakes and diminish myself in order to make it clear that I understand that I made a mistake and that I will not do the same mistake again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that expressing remorse through self-diminishment is necessary so that others would not get angry at me.

• The memory of me around 4-5 years old dropping eggshells into batter and my mother reacting with sharp and loud words that told me I had made a mistake – mom exerting her emotions on me - I was frightened by her attack on me – felt horrible emotionally, started crying and ran away.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become overwhelmed by my responsibilities and thus make it feel as if I am “doing everything”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is impossible for me to do “more” than what I am capable of, and that whatever I do I am in fact able to do – meaning that when I do things that make me feel heavy I am not in fact doing “too much” but acting through resistance and making possible tasks feel impossible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist my responsibilities because I have made them feel “heavy” through self-judgement: I perceive myself to be a failure already so I don't even want to try.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think, believe and perceive that when something feels heavy and difficult, “I can't do it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when a task feels big and heavy, I am small and unable in comparison and “incapable” of getting the task done – not realizing that starting, working on and completing a task is a matter of breath-to-breath movements, which I am capable of assisting and supporting myself to carry out when and as I am standing within and as breath grounded in the physical.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that writing my blog is “too much”, not realizing that in all simplicity all it requires is that I arrange a comfortable environment for writing, open a blank text file and start putting down words one letter at a time about what I am experiencing at the very moment.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my writing by setting myself a standard according to which just writing about my current experience is “not good enough” but that I would need to come to fundamental realization about myself every single day – not realizing that sometimes I get so “stuck” that it is required for me to write through the daily grind before seeing the “big picture” of what is going on with me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that reading my school books is “too much”, not realizing that studying these books, no matter how many, is simply a matter of arranging myself a comfortable reading spot, having the book and pen and paper with me, getting the basic outlines of the book through the introduction and the index, and then simply reading one word at a time, one sentence at a time, one paragraph at a time, and making notes as I go.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage my studying by setting myself a standard according to which I'd need to read a lot of pages at once and get the task done as soon as possible because of the amount of reading I need to do, thus not even trying when I'd only have a little time to read or when I believe and perceive myself to be “too tired” to absorb the information.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that taking care of housework is “too much”, not realizing that all these tasks are really simple (washing the dishes, watering the plants, taking the trash, cleaning the floors) and only require me to move myself one inch at a time, no matter how slowly and gradually.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to sabotage myself taking care of my household work by believing and perceiving that “I'm too tired to get on my feet”, thus never even trying to stand up, breathe myself into stability and move myself one inch at a time to gradually get the chores done.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself to have “failed” in the discussion from the previous day, carrying this self-judgement with me unaddressed until the next day and thus accumulating the experience of being a “failure”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like the discussion was a “failure” because some points were left unresolved, not realizing that because there is/was a chance of still resolving those points and thus correcting my behavior, no such thing as “failure” has (yet) happened and can still be fully avoided.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that not all points can be fully resolved within a single discussion and that processing a point may take time and several discussions before a conclusion is reached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to carry full responsibility for a discussion that happened between two participants and feel guilty for “not making it work”, not realizing that I am not responsible for how the other person behaved within the situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear disappointing my employers by making a mistake and thus appearing “unworthy” of their trust and appreciation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about “failing” at work every time I do something that I know to include a chance of “something going wrong” - not realizing that basically any action I commit at my work place (even just walking from point A to point B!) includes the possibility of some damage happening to my work place (I could carelessly tip over a chair which could break when hitting the floor) – and that because the possibility of something getting damaged is always present whenever I am at my work place it is not relevant to be mindful of the “dangers” because my employers have taken a conscious risk there by opening a business that includes other people using your property unsupervised.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that some of the risks of “things going wrong” are such that I could easily prevent, for example by taking the cash register key with me when I go get stuff from the storage.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about not being nice enough to the customers and causing them to not want to come to the bar again, not realizing that in order to make people feel actually welcome I need to be myself unsuppressed with any and all customers instead of wearing a polite “nice persona” out of fear of myself not being “good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by suppressing myself at work I build the bar into a place of self-suppression, making customers feel tense and unwelcome, whereas by not suppressing myself and by expressing myself unlimited I build the bar into a place of self-integrity, self-honesty and real human interaction, which might alienate some but work in everyone's favour in the long run.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to wear a “nice personality” at work because of how I have experienced the feedback of one of my employers, not realizing that I don't need to wear a mask to be kind, considerate and friendly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for making mistakes at work, not realizing that self-judgement (“I am so stupid”) works as a defense mechanism to not take in the feedback and actually consider how I could improve in my job, because here I use self-judgement to distance myself from who I was when making the mistake (myself) by creating a character out of who I was when making the mistake (“stupid”).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that making mistakes is unavoidable, and that when and as I make mistakes I will best “redeem” myself by stopping to consider who I was when making the mistake, forgiving myself for the mistake and reconstructing myself so that I will not repeat the same mistake again (but instead make new kinds of mistakes, lol).

When and as I receive feedback at work about something I could improve on, I commit myself to stop, breathe and consider who I was when making the mistake. I consider the reasons for why I should change my behavior and make sure I see why it is necessary I change. I then forgive myself for the mistake and, if necessary, build a mind pattern that will remind me to change my behavioral patterns when and as the action is at hand.

I commit myself to investigate the characters, personalities and masks I carry with me at work and to release them in writing, self-forgiveness and breathing.

When and as I think I have made a “mistake” or “failed”, I commit myself to look at how the situation could be corrected instead of reveling in self-judgement as I see, realize and understand that self-judgement doesn't contribute to finding a solution in any way whatsoever.

When and as I feel like “doing nothing” - I stop, I breathe and I ask myself why I feel like “doing nothing” and what it is I should be doing but resist instead. I check myself for the feeling of heaviness / being burdened, and if the experience of heaviness is here, I realize that have accumulated it through some kind of self-abuse. I check my recent past (last 48 hours) for self-judgement or other kinds of self-abuse and self-neglect. Instead of “doing nothing” and escaping the heaviness I have created, I deal with the origin of the heaviness in whatever ways I can – breathing, resting, speaking, writing, discussing – and release the points I come across in self-forgiveness.

When and as a task feels like it's “too much” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that by making something seem “too much” I make myself appear “too little” in comparison. I realize that this is not in fact true and that through practice, patience and consistency any task is possible for me to undertake: any task is one with and equal to me. I breathe and I stabilize myself, and I look at the task at hand to map out the steps that lead to its completion. I evaluate the amount of time and work required for each step and according to this self-honest assessment of reality I make a plan on how to get the task done. I then proceed onto the “first step” and give it my full focus without worrying about the next stages of the task.

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 313-315: Singing to impress

12-14092013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Days 269-270: Racial prejudice

06-07072013

Today I was walking to the convenience store with my friend and on the street we witnessed and uncommon incident. An old local man was sitting by the road and another man (caucasian) was walking from the store carrying a bottle of soda in a plastic bag. The old man stood up, stopped the other man, took the bottle from the plastic bag and started walking away with the bottle. Here we stopped to look at what was going on because the old man just did it, “this is now mine”, and started leisurely walking away, not running. The other man was as confused as we were and just followed the old man for a while. I don't know if he ever got it back because we continued on.

According to my friend what we saw was really out of place; she has lived here for 18 months and never seen anything like it. The culture here is that everything is of common property, but still people don't exactly “steal” unless they're driven to it by extreme poverty. The culture of sharing or forceful claiming might be the cause of the low crime rate – a lot of stealing is not recognized to be stealing, it's just taking what's rightfully yours. Which does have a logic of its own as all of the Earth's resources should belong to everyone, but we do not yet live in a society where this would actually function through equal distribution, so for now I just call this coercion and theft.

When we discussed this incident afterwards I pointed out the obvious “white man” prejudice: maybe the old man took from the white man because the overall misconception is that all white men are rich and have plenty from which to share. My friend then replied that during her stay here she has learned that these incidents mostly have to do with simple human relations rather than racism, and that every time when she has tried to solve a situation without bringing up the possible racial prejudice someone else pulls out the “racism card” – and this is when I realized that this is true, that the racial argument is an easy answer, an easy explanation. To just say “because racism” is to bypass all of the processes that lead up to racial prejudice or to any sort of prejudice for that matter. I will now carry responsibility for supporting racial prejudice by assuming it from others, and by downplaying a lot of what happens within a human being by compressing it into a “racism explanation”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that all the locals live according to the misconception that people with “white skin” (everyone who is not black) is rich in material possessions, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to this belief/perception with fear of others judging me and thinking less of me because of an assumption that is based on nothing but the colour of my skin and has nothing to do with who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being unfairly judged because it affects how others treat me, behave around me and relate themselves to me in spite of my own application.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if others choose to believe their perception of me in spite of my application, there is nothing I can do about it but to move on to other people and other circumstances where movement might be possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use the concept of racism to explain human behavior without looking into what causes racism to formulate – what exactly accumulates into racism.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at myself and how I have lived as racism in order to figure out how racism is created.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of people of different ethnicities as mine as “others” - the ones that are opposite from me, separate from me, disengaged from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have always lived in a homogenous society with one dominant ethnicity, to define this one dominant ethnicity as “familiar” and “safe” and react with fear whenever I come across people of an ethnicity I have defined as “unfamiliar”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the physical appearance of a person is a boundary that separates us from each other, like a wall standing in between us, not stopping to actually face and interact with the other to see, realize and understand that the wall is a wall of FEAR which I have created and imagined to be real.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself within my fear to avoid facing a person of a different ethnicity, thus stopping myself from seeing, realizing and understanding that we are both LIFE, that we both breathe and move and have beating hearts and pulsing bodies, and that in that we are absolutely equal – the amount of LIFE in both of us is equal.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be moved by my fear of “the others” into avoiding contact with those who I have defined as “unfamiliar” / “alien”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid eye contact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid touch contact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid conversation with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interact with people of “unfamiliar” ethnicities through fear, reservation, reluctance, tension, stereotyping, assumptions - never giving these people a fair chance because I never allow myself to look at who they actually are with eyes unclouded by fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as prejudice by believing that “I know” something about the other better than he/she knows it him/herself, not realizing that this claim is arrogant as well as absurd because I cannot know the subjective experience of another, especially not based on first impression alone.

When and as I see myself avoiding contact with a person of an “unfamiliar” ethnicity – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am erecting an imaginary wall in between two equal beings of life. I stabilize my breath, find my heartbeat if possible and I move myself out of my position of hiding by physically opening myself up by releasing muscle tension, turning to face the other and making sure my posture is open, relaxed and supportive. I search myself for any trace of prejudice and remind myself that in fact I don't know anything about the other person for certain.

I commit myself to no longer accept and allow my racial prejudice to move me by utilizing the self-corrective statement above.

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I was just talking with my friend about the reoccurring themes we have discussed lately and I noticed that I was about to pull out another compressed explanation – this time only it was not the “racism card” but the idea of this culture being in a “teenage” state of development which I have used to explain immature behavior in relationships. I realized that there are more of these explanation cards than just the racism one, and I will deal with this issue separately.