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.

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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 388: Feeling like a loser – a “good student” dilemma

19022014

I had worked really hard for an essay I wrote for a university course, and when we got the grades yesterday and my grade for the essay was much worse than I had expected, I ended up really disappointed. I read through the feedback my teacher had given me and thought that she had judged me unfairly, giving me a “poor grade” on shaky terms even though she recognized my essay was well-written. I ended up being really furious, frustrated and angry, and I even thought of sending the teacher an email to “explain myself”, but I realized I would only compromise my future grades on the course by acting out of aggression and also justify my reaction to myself by acting upon it. I released some fumes, let some time pass and talked about it with some people.

I realized I was blaming my disappointment in myself on my teacher, which is absurd as my self-judgement has nothing to do with her or anyone else in particular. What I am facing here is a major self-definition that I learned during my basic schooling.

In school I was a “good student”. I learned things pretty fast, I was slightly above average in most subjects and excelled in some. At first I didn't think much of this. Later on I started noticing how this gave me a “special position” in the eyes of teachers – how they would look at me, talk to me and treat me with appreciation, admiration and acceptance – and especially when I started to get bullied and questioned my self-worth, my skills in schoolwork (and other things I was skilled at) became what I gave myself worth through. In other words, I wanted to do good in school because then I would find acceptance in my surroundings – if not from my peers, then from my authorities.

Where I went wrong with this assignment was when I felt good after finishing the essay. I had gone through an extensive research and writing period and managed to put together a comprehensive essay with a point of view I found interesting. When I finally got it done, I felt good because I had learned a lot about writing scientific essays and the topic I was writing about. However, I misinterpreted this feelgood. This feeling of “yes, I got it done” has usually to me been an indicator of a good grade: when I have felt satisfied with the result, so have others. In this case the situation was different: even though what I had done was good, it wasn't what the teacher had requested (in which case I still think the assignment was then instructed unclearly – it can't have all been just me being careless or “not getting it”). This is where I collide with the workings of university, which are not always fair and rewarding when one has worked hard, because there are other requirements to meet as well, depending on whoever happens to be the evaluating authority. It all functions around arbitrary rules given by whomever is in charge, and to be able to “play the game” of university – to get the credentials available – one needs to learn an authority's preferences and expectations.

This is of course not how I would have it. I would rather have disposed of the entire grading system on all levels of education. But this is the system I am within at the moment, and I need to learn how to work my way through it.

This is why I need to walk through my self-definition as a “good student”, because it contains the idea that I am only worth something when I rub others the right way. It causes me to be merciless towards myself and others, to justify my place at the top of the hierarchy, to distort the meaning of learning, and to distract me from why I am in university at all. In short, I lose my grip of the big picture.

Having this process running for a day now has lead to side-effects of powerlessness, loss of motivation (for schoolwork) and waves of self-judgement (when doing recreational activities). It is interesting to see how a single point of origin – the moment when I read the teacher's feedback – can affect my entire state of being for endless spans of time unless I stop and unravel it myself.

I will continue from here with self-forgiveness tomorrow.

Days 307-308: Stolen time

03-04092013

I'm totally stealing ALL your precious moments! ... oh, but this is just a clock.

Recently my schedule has filled up explosively due to university, work, social life, organizations and recreational activities, and I am getting increasingly anxious. I see myself thinking of others as “time thieves” when they seek for my attention/time/effort and I easily get frustrated with others because I'm thinking “I don't have time for this!”, yet I don't actually do anything about it – I never address the fact that I am busy but rather try to participate in everything out of obligation. I end up not finishing my tasks because after all the struggling with the “time thieves” I am too exhausted to properly utilize the time that remains of my day and rather just indulge in entertainment to “recharge”.

But in reality the schedule seems much worse than it actually is, and a lot of the things I have taken into my life are flexible and even removable if that's what's required. When I take one day at a time, one activity at a time, one moment at a time I see that I actually have time quite plentifully, especially because of the flexibility of things. So this is about my perspective as well as feeling obligated to participate. I am intimidated by my calendar stretching to weeks and months ahead when I should be focusing on the NOW.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look at my schedule and perceive it to be “full”, flipping through the pages of my calendar and getting intimidated by the amount of work I have to get done in a short span of time – not realizing that in between this moment and (for example) the moment I get my last exam of this year done are countless of inhales and exhales, countless of moments of breath when I can little by little through consistency work my way towards getting my workload done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my workload seem bigger than it is by thinking about how little I get done each day, not realizing that that little in time accumulates up to big results.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with frustration to people I perceive to be “demanding” for my time, effort and attention, blaming them for “stealing my time”, not realizing that I am the one who chooses how to “spend” my time – not them – and that it is thus my responsibility to make sure that I have enough time to complete my tasks.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not refuse a person requesting for my time because I have not wanted to insult them – I have wanted to avoid conflict – I have not wanted to tell another that I perceive them to not be “worthy” of my time at the moment – that I have something “more important” to do; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to please and to help others because if I wouldn't they might react, feel bad and blame their reaction on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to neglect my tasks and responsibilities because I have feared being self-honest with others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I spend my time on others out of obligation I am living within the experience “I don't want to be here” - and when I'm still there even though I don't want to I create friction and strain within myself as I am “pulled” to another direction that I am walking in, thus making myself more exhausted than I would be after simply being there and moving myself within and as breath – thus requiring a “recharge” by pumping myself with energy through entertainment (media, food, people, excess sleep) to be able to function again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will “run out of time” - that my life will not be enough for all the things I want to / should get done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time can be “stolen” - that time is a resource I have stacked in a vault somewhere – not realizing that time is a measurement for the movement of matter, not matter itself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that time is something that I “have” or “possess” - “I don't have time for this”, “I'm wasting my time”, “my time is precious” - not realizing that I do not “have” time because as movement and Life I am time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that time is the relationship between that which exists and how it moves – and that time itself doesn't really exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I think “I don't have time for X” what I mean by it is that I don't want to move to the direction of X – I don't want to rearrange my life in such a way that would allow me to move to X.

(For example, I could say “I don't have time to cook”, when in fact it is just about me not wanting to rearrange my other activities so that I could cook, usually because it feels like too much of a burden.)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that eventually I will run out of time – when I die – and that it is the inevitability of the loss of all time that scares me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my “time” (life) will run out before I've completed everything that I want/need/desire to do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about gathering up experiences into a “perfect life story” which I could after this Life look back on to feel successful and good about myself – I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that Life is not about how much I live but about how I live.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “successfulness” of my life is not measured in stories I gather into my mind but in each and every breath because the stories do not exist in the NOW - only breath does.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the “success” of my studying is not measured in how fast I get my degree but in how effectively I learn.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel that in my life I am in a hurry, as if I was running somewhere, wanting to already be 5 years from here when I'd have my degree and could “get on” with my life – not realizing that the 5 years ahead of me are crucial concerning my future and that I should not try to “fast forward” them, but instead slow down and live each and every moment of these years within and as breath.

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I also did some private SF on a specific "time thief", and while doing it I realized that most of these cases are actually not about time at all, but about a resentment I feel towards the "time thief", be it a person, activity or an organization. In this particular case the resentment was about a person with whom I can't seem to be able to bring any substance into our interaction. So here the issue was apparently about time - "wasting my time" on something that bears no fruit - but underneath that it was actually about me wanting to escape a person in the presence of whom I felt like I couldn't direct myself, which I then covered up by thinking "I don't have time". I think I need to open this point up a little more later.

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I commit myself to slow myself down in breath to focus on one task at a time within and as the realization that if my focus is on the things I have to get done in the future I will half-ass what I'm doing NOW.

I commit myself to assist and support myself to get my tasks done properly by making myself a realistic schedule which also allows me space to rest.

I commit myself to focus primarily on my studies and the activities that directly support my studies, and only focus on other things when/as/if there is time left for other things.

When and as I get frustrated with something/someone that I perceive to be “stealing my time” - I stop and I breathe. I realize that I am blaming my own experience of anxiety on the other and abdicating my responsibility for managing my own life. I realize I am driven by the fear of “running out of time” (death) and the fear of failure, which have nothing to do with the “time thief”. I release the blame with self-forgiveness and breathing, and I do the same with my anxiety and fears by grounding myself in breath and reminding myself I am HERE. I check myself for any resentment towards the “time thief” which I might be justifying with “not having time”. I ask myself why I resent spending time on the “time thief” keeping in mind that time is most likely not the actual issue. I direct myself within and as the realization that I will learn the most where I feel uncomfortable.

Day 240: Trouble finding stability

23052013

A couple of nights ago I woke up to an experience I described as a swarm of thoughts attacking me, like a swarm of fish just slammed against me. During this experience, in a half-asleep state, I realized that I am like a fisherman who picks up a fish from a swarm when I choose to believe a thought and ignore another – when I participate in a thought by believing it I make an active choice to “pick it up” when I could instead allow the swarm to swim past me without grabbing any of it.

I have lately been struggling with immense backchat concerning an issue that is here, and last night it got to such an extreme that I walked around town to find a night club where I could dance off my frustration – I didn't find one (each one had crappy music) but the worst frustration wore off simply with the act of vigorous walking. I wrote about it and I read some writings by Bernard which helped me stabilize. I'm starting to see more and more what is actually causing the “swarm of fish” (thoughts) to appear in the first place, and so far it has been an unconscious fear that is triggered by something in my environment (people, events, places, etc). The fear that goes unaddressed is what “drags” me deeper into a psychosis-like state of thoughts bouncing around.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore the patterns of fear that have been triggered in me and thus allow myself to believe the thoughts that occur as a result.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to accumulate the thoughts of fear, doubt, blame, suppression, grief and loneliness to a point where I became so frustrated that I was unable to communicate my experience to anyone and needed to release the energy physically.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that none of these thoughts is real in any way whatsoever because they are based on assumptions and guesses and not on what is actually here in the physical reality.

I commit myself to stop slacking off with my practical application by facing my fears in practice instead of running away from them within and as the realization that nothing that goes on in my mind is actually real and bears no value in terms of actually moving myself HERE in breath in the physical.

I commit myself to continue writing about the fears and points that I have now been facing, be it private or public.

I've realized that I have been slacking off on my process while I've been traveling and that it's now getting back at me with slackier practical application. It is very difficult for me to focus on writing now that I do not have a stable environment to do that in, so I write more rarely and more vaguely. I realize that I now face a challenge where the stability needed for writing has to be found within me alone, and this is a big challenge in itself – so why not fully focus on this, then? Perhaps having a clear guideline would help.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist writing because it feels now even more effortful than it did back home, not realizing that as my environment is in constant change I need to give myself extra support to have a proper writing environment every day.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not publish the writings I have written daily because I have judged them to not be good enough, not realizing that if I gifted myself with the time and support I needed for writing I could finish the writings into a publishable shape.

I commit myself to dedicate myself writing time (pen and paper / computer) within the waking hours of each and every day no matter where I am, and I commit myself to ensure myself proper privacy, silence and physical support (food/drink/sitting surface/lighting) within and as the realization that this “writing space” can be created anywhere with little effort.

When and as I resist doing my daily writing, I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that if I do not write my practical application will become more slacky and that this will lead to all kinds of unpleasant and unnecessary emotional experiences. I check my surroundings to see if there is something I could do to improve my writing environment. I check myself for any excuses/justifications to not write and I clear these out with self-honesty.

I commit myself to write even if it's something I cannot publish in my blog within and as the realization that even though it is important to share so that others would find support I am writing mainly for myself.

Day 230: Discussion on the word "responsibility"

11052013

so heavy!

I had a conversation with a friend and it turned interesting when I noticed we were talking about the same concept but with differing definitions where it started turning into a debate. I realized how important it is to make sure all are on the same level about words, the gravity of words and the nature of words as symbols that can be loaded in a multitude of ways.

The word we clashed with was “responsibility” (or “vastuu” in finnish). My friend connected this word extensively with negative connotations and told me that “there is no responsibility without guilt”. I explained my take on responsibility by saying that when there is a goal (here, to ensure a world that is best for all) then I have responsibility as defined by the goal – if I act in a way the consequences of which distance me from the goal then I am not carrying my responsibility. I also talked about individual responsibility (one's “ultimate” responsibility towards oneself) when he expressed that “no one has to take care of others”. I do not see carrying responsibility to be a “burden” or anything negative, because it is simply what is now necessary.

So when we actually got to the meta level and noticed we were having a debate because of this one word we got to discharging it. It was cool because he saw where his understanding of this word comes from and I realized that this is where some of my conversations with people may go wrong, that I'm simply misinterpreted. I also realized the importance of simplifying or breaking down complicated concepts so that they are comprehendible for everyone, although not “dumbing it down” and encouraging more complex cognitive understanding.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take into consideration the differing interpretations people have of words and to thus explain the terms I am using and make sure I am on the same level of understanding with others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to refuse to let go of “my way” of using words within a conversation to allow for the terms to be broken down and understood by all because I have believed and perceived that “my way” of using the words is “correct” and the others' is “incorrect”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to override the other in the conversation when I realized what was causing conflict and wanted to share this so that the conflict would be solved, not allowing the other to finish their sentence and belittling them when they reacted to this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to being interrupted within conversation with frustration, thinking “he never allows me to speak” and making myself restless and unable to listen to his words, accumulating this experience every time I got interrupted, and then exerting my frustration on the other (as described above) when I had the chance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to being interrupted instead of stopping, breathing and realizing that this is nothing personal but just the other expressing themselves – living as who they are by interrupting my speech – and that this here is a chance for me to observe the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disregard the gravity of words by not being aware of the vocabulary I use and the reactions it may stir in others, as I have not seen, realized or understood that communication is not about reveling in my self-expression but about exchanging information/understanding with others.

I commit myself to build awareness of my speech and vocabulary as I now see, realize and understand its gravity; and I commit myself to do this by paying attention to others and their reactions to my words within the realization that their reactions are not reactions towards me but towards their interpretations of the words I use.

When and as I get agitated within a conversation, I stop and I breathe. I allow myself to take a break to stabilize myself in breath within the realization that by forgetting to breathe I am allowing my participation in the conversation to “get out of hands” as I participate in my energetic reactions towards the other and engage in a “battle” to “win” the conversation instead of actually communicating. If necessary, I allow myself a break from the conversation by physically moving myself elsewhere for a moment. I return to the conversation once the energy has dissipated and my breath is stable.

When and as another interrupts me within a conversation and I react to this - I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that this is nothing personal but the other expressing him/herself. I breathe and let go of what I was speaking about in order to listen and hear what the other one says and to observe what it is he/she is now expressing. I then place this in context with what I was speaking of before I got interrupted and accordingly decide where to direct the conversation when it is my turn to speak.