Day 400: Fear of being happy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 399: Of existence and will

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http://salamanderking.deviantart.com/art/Ghost-170997222

Today a chain of events, triggers and reactions led to me realizing that despite the fact that I tell myself that I am of the same value and worth as every other bit and piece of life, I do not actually believe it. I kind of entered a new level of self-honesty, where I finally admitted to myself that my mantras do not work: despite the knowledge of how things are, I do not live out or live as that knowledge.

I asked myself why I crave for appreciation, acceptance and affection from others, as the perceived lack of them triggered a reaction in me. I realized how it all – again – comes down to the phrase “I'm not (good) enough”, the one thing I keep on returning to in every moment of crisis. I realize that the issue is not that others take me for granted or don't appreciate me, but the fact that I allow the thoughts, actions and feelings/emotions of others to define myself, my value and my worth. On a rational level I know that my value is unchangeable, stable, in precise unity with everything else – but I don't feel it. I don't believe it. I am not living as these words. How can I be of value when I don't live as if I did? What is worthwhile living and am I doing any of it at all? Would I find value in myself through actions? If so, what kind of actions would those be? How do I need to live to live as if I mattered? And yet, how do I live so that I am of value despite my actions, so that I don't act just for the sake of salvation?

Apart from this existential crisis, which raised some really valid questions, I also came across one of my old behavioral patterns. I have lived a life of seclusion because whenever I have wanted myself to not be seen, I have pushed people away from me. I realize my wish to hide is to cover myself from my own eyes, so that I wouldn't be exposed to myself, and thus I have refused the approaches of others as I have not been willing to embrace myself as I am. I had an inner dialogue with myself and an imagined person in my mind, where I was explaining this to the other and they responded:

“You're pretty fucked up, aren't you?”

“We're all fucked up to some extent, that's nothing special. But I am tired of being broken. I want to be whole. I choose to want to be whole. I know I can be. I could choose otherwise, but my will is to mend myself. I choose to not stay broken.”

I see how this behavioral pattern of pushing people away and escaping them is still a part of me, and today I felt pity towards myself for it, as I saw how I cause all of my own misfortune by following the same routes over and over again. But I also realized that pity will only give me an excuse to not change as I define myself through it. “Poor pitiful me, this is who I am.” NO. I have a choice, and I have it right here. The past cannot be changed, but most of its effects can be mended, and so I choose to do. I refuse to be a victim of myself.

What I need to learn is to let people see me – to embrace the exposure as it is a gift and a lesson. Self-forgiveness will help me work my way there, and I will continue with it from here.

Day 394: Failing at life

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 387: Loneliness is the result of my passiveness

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A couple of days ago I went into a kind of a hyperactive state, where I became extremely social and where I was really cheerful and on a good mood. This lasted until today where after a day of socializing and kilometers of walking (which did me good, I haven't been exercising lately) I crashed back home and was tired to the point where I had to recharge for several hours before having the energy to do something (the writing I'm doing at the moment).

This is an interesting point to look at, because I went through some points regarding socializing before my hyper-state began. My partner left a few days ago to his home country and at first I was not OK with living alone again. I felt disconnected, dead, stagnant and joyless, which I saw to be because there was nothing in my apartment that lives on the same “level” with me (house plants and even pets don't really compare to another human being), thus making my environment lacking in external incentives for self-reflection: in other words, I no longer had the mirror that I had grown to enjoy.

When I reflected upon this point I came across thoughts regarding my friends, mainly consisting of hoping that they would reach out to me – which is when I asked myself: why should they come to me? How would they even know I would like company? Why am I not going to them?

And so while pondering upon all this on Valentine's day – I day I have had a heavily charged relationship towards, with all the expectations of romantic gestures being flung towards me while I sit on my ass – I worked my way through certain levels of discomfort and took myself outside to where some of my friends were, as I realized that if there is something I need, I am responsible for somehow delivering it. I continued this trajectory also yesterday, enjoying my work shift at the bar to the fullest, and today as I met a lot of people and really embraced their company for the first time in what seems like months. I kinda realized something new about the importance and function of friends as mirrors, and also discovered that I, somehow surprisingly, have quite a lot of them. If I catch myself thinking “I have no friends”, I'll now know it's a delusion I create out of passiveness.

So in a way having my partner live with me was the easy way to socialize, because he would always be available at home. When living with others the basic need for socializing is fulfilled within my easy-to-access zone that doesn't require extra effort for me – but the downside of this is that every social connection that does require effort starts to feel like “too much” in comparison, not to mention the stagnation that comes from only socializing with a limited number of people.

So: the hyper-social state caused by some new realizations and the following practical application, combined with a lack of sleep and plenty of exercise and fresh air, caused me to become tired for a few hours. Doesn't sound unreasonable when I put it like that, lol.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect myself to have a social life without myself doing anything to construct, support, uphold and develop it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect others to approach me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if others approach me it is a sign that I have friends, and that if others do not approach me it is a sign that I do not have friends – not realizing that a balanced and sustainable relationship of any sorts cannot come out of a situation where one is constantly passive and the others are constantly active.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my need to socialize – the moment where I notice I am alone and would rather be with someone – by looking for signs of someone approaching me (checking facebook, email, phone, physical surroundings) and feeling satisfied/fulfilled when someone is approaching me or disappointed when I am not being approached.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to not being approached by blaming myself (for not being good enough) and by blaming the world (for not giving me a good life).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the world owes me a “good life”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to turn my back to the world (the people) when it hasn't (they haven't) given me a “good life” in terms of the social dimension, thinking that “if they don't approach me, I don't have to approach them” - not realizing that I am in fact acting out of FEAR as I am afraid of being rejected if I take the “risk” of approaching another and thus revealing the fact that I (gasp!) like the person – as if it was a fucking secret! - and that the other person might be just as much in the need of company and just as afraid of reaching out to others to get it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the unfairness of always expecting others to approach me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that friendships are created, upheld and developed while I passively sit on my ass and make no effort whatsoever.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the answer to “why should I if others don't” in this case is that if I don't, the others never will.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize it is my responsibility to ensure myself a fulfilling social life.

I commit myself to further explore and investigate the social dimension of life. (So far so good!)

I commit myself to enjoy the people around me, whoever they may be according to circumstance, by seeking how we could mutually both give and receive.

I commit myself to teach myself to approach others when I am in need of company.

Days 377-378: Dissatisfied with life

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

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

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

“My life as it is feels unsatisfying”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 327: Attraction, part 5

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This post is a continuation to:

Day 323: Attraction, part 1

Day 324: Attraction, part 2

Day 325: Attraction, part 3

Day 326: Attraction, part 4

The connection personality (see yesterday's post for context)

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a connection in relationships because I have felt disconnected from Life.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disconnect myself from Life – from all that there is – by believing and perceiving that I am somehow “special”, “unique” and “individual”, that I am “different” from other forms of Life because I have a consciousness of my “own”.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the experience of “being alive” from the energetic experience of “connecting” with another person as I have separated/alienated myself from the experience of being alive in every single breath.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate/alienate myself from myself as a being of Life by not realizing I am in fact alive in every single heartbeat, every single inhale and exhale, every single moment that passes by.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an expectation that “being alive” should feel somehow “big” and “overwhelming” and to thus feel disappointed when my life does not include that rush of energy. *

* I need to investigate where this expectation/definition has been created. Probably somewhere in my childhood, where positive life experiences have been experienced with a rush of energy, thus confusing this energy and “good living” to be connected.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a connection in relationships because I have felt disconnected from myself.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to disconnect myself from myself by resenting myself, thinking that life experienced through “who I am” is not “good enough” - it doesn't feel big, strong, overwhelming, ecstatic, powerful, fulfilling enough – not realizing that I have created “who I am” and that I am thus responsible for my life experience not being enjoyable, and that I cannot mend this by seeking for fulfillment from outside of me, as if I was abandoning a sinking ship.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my life does not feel fulfilling because of how I live from within myself, and that I have created my experience of unfulfillment/disconnection by living as a being that is limited, suppressed, fearful and self-dishonest.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for a “cure” for my unfulfillment/disconnection from other people, wanting to live through others as my “ship” has already been sinking, not realizing that I cannot escape this “ship” and jump onto another – it is simply physically impossible – and that if I want to live a fulfilling life I am going to have to fix THIS “ship” - myself – so that this “ship” could sail on its own.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent facing my own misgivings and finding a way to mend them because they have felt “too much” and “unmendable”, thus giving up on living as self-fulfillment/self-connection and only seeking fulfillment/connection from other people.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to desire for the moment where I “connect” with another because within that moment we become an entity – two beings energetically synchronized – which makes me feel more “fulfilled” as I for a moment live through/in a symbiosis with the other and thus can ignore myself and not live within and as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive it is justified for me to neglect myself and to seek for the experience of “connection” from others as “fulfillment”, because this is what I have for all my life seen others do – this is what my world taught me through example – and because “everyone else is doing it” I believe and perceive myself to be excused to do it as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to crave for the moment where I “connect” with another because within that moment I feel accepted, seen and heard, meaningful, worthy, special and loved – not realizing that I do not experience any of this as myself but only through the other, meaning that if the other was not there I would not experience self-acceptance, self-attention, self-direction, self-worth and self-appreciation but would feel “empty” and “unfulfilled”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the “magnetism” I feel between me and another is a sign that I'm doing the “right thing” - that getting closer to the other is justified – when in fact that “pull” I feel is me moving within and as my mind according to my desire to get to the acceptance I might get from the other, like a beggar approaching a man with a wallet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to replace self-acceptance with the acceptance I get from others, not realizing that this is not a sustainable way of living as the acceptance I get from others always fades so that I have to go “hunting” for more, whereas I could build self-acceptance into my very structure so that it would be with me no matter “where I go” – even if there were no other beings around me to make me feel accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a “good life” is a life lived – meaning that every moment of life is in fact lived within and as breath, as the being that I am in the flesh within the physical existence, and not escaped by jumping from one energetic experience to another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that “fully living” means that every moment should “feel like something” - that every moment should be energetically charged.

I will continue with self-corrective statements and commitments on what I have written during the past few days.

Day 317: SF on Day 316: Loss of direction

17092013

I'm going through the video log from yesterday.

“my life is going well”

• what is “well”? What is my definition of a life that is “going well”?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that one's life is “going well” when one has something meaningful and enjoyable to do, here creating a separation between a “good” life and a “bad” life, thinking that the “bad” life without meaningful and enjoyable activities is not life worth living, not realizing that if one's life does become what I have defined as “not good” (“not going well”) it is a challenge one has brought upon oneself and that it is definitely worth living through – not getting stuck into – as this, too, is LIFE as life is in every moment of breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that now that my life is “going well” (I have something meaningful and enjoyable to do) I should also feel happy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel like there's “something missing” from my experience because even though my life is “going well” I don't have that feeling of happiness and euphoria, being uplifted and excited – not realizing that I base this expectation on previous experiences in my life where my life has felt “perfect” for a while as I have both had something enjoyable to do AND I have had that feeling of happiness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the feeling of happiness is required for my life to be fulfilling, not realizing that happiness as a feeling is an outflow of who I have lived as before the happiness, that it is the polarity of the negative feelings I have felt before, and that happiness surfaces to balance out the negative in a cyclic manner when I live within the negative-positive emotional loop – and that therefore when I release that emotional cycle and no longer live within, as and according to it and instead live within and as stability, the positive feelings that I crave for (as opposed to the negative feelings that I resent) will cease to exist.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to long for the feeling of happiness because I have defined it to be an indicator of when my life is “going well” and I don't have to worry about myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what actually indicates that I am living as LIFE and self-expression, as a being one with and equal to this reality, is stability: not being thrown around by both positive and negative feelings and emotions.*

* Not to confuse this with self-suppression, where one would be denying one's feelings and emotions and refusing to express them: a non-emotional “steel mask”. Feelings and emotions are an indicator of who we are at the moment, and thus when and as they surface they can be channeled in a non-destructive way and then, as they are out in the open for oneself, investigated and forgiven and eventually released. Stability is where emotions and feelings do not direct you, and where you do not lose sight of yourself in the middle of emotional turmoil.

I commit myself to stop to investigate any experiences of dissatisfaction that surface in me by asking myself if there is an expectation that is not being fulfilled.

I commit myself to slow down to enjoy feeling like “nothing” (no emotional experience affecting my state of being) by exploring my world as from this state movement is most effortless – or at least my boundaries are easier to detect – which is a great opportunity to expand myself.

When and as I get dissatisfied with “feeling nothing” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that I have defined a “satisfactory living” to be one where I am living within a positive emotional experience. I realize that the lack of a positive emotional experience is not a “bad thing” and that “feeling nothing” (not having a positive or a negative emotional experience) is an indicator of stability, no matter how momentary. I utilize self-forgiveness to release the dissatisfaction and I embrace the moment as described in the statement above.

--

“During [my travels] I made a lot of decisions to change my daily rhythm, my life style, and I've been living out those decisions, at least some of them. I'm still not working completely well with some of the points --.”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself after I got home to get comfortable with not exercising as I no longer “had to” keep on moving every single day [when I traveled I carried a heavy rucksack with me and mostly walked around A LOT].

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards physical exercise because I “had to” do so much of it during my travels.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I did not “have to” move as there was no outside force that would have actually made it compulsory for me to physically move myself, not wanting to carry responsibility for my decision to move physically (in theory I could have just staid still other than walking in and out of airplanes) as this decision caused me weariness and discomfort.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame “others” for “expecting me to move”, not realizing I was projecting my own demands and expectations for myself onto others so that I could avoid carrying responsibility for this self-expectation that wore me out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have created this resistance during my travels by not allowing myself enough rest to compensate for the physical and mental strain that I went through.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to my home because it offers me so much comfort – soft and clean places to sit and lie in, enough entertainment to last me for the rest of my life, fun activities and hobbies, good food that I have chosen to supply myself with – not realizing that by creating a desire to stay home and be as comfortable as possible I limit my life extensively as outside of my walls there is an entire world of people and places to explore.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to narrow my physical comfort zone down to my apartment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist going out for walks without a destination.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist going out to meet people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist exercising (full yoga routine, jogging, dancing).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist practicing violin and piano playing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist singing practice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist making music.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to my resistance and desire for comfort by giving up when I “don't feel like doing it”.

I commit myself to step by step work my way out of my comfort zone by not demanding everything of myself at once but utilizing the moments that I see to start out with something small from which I can expand through consistent practice.

• with yoga: do a little each morning before breakfast and grow the amount weekly
• with meeting friends: meet at least one friend a week other than in school or at work
• with outdoors exercise: have at least one aimless walking trip per one week
• with music: have at least one practice session per week, be it any instrument or form of music
• with singing: sing at least one song a day

I commit myself to have mercy on myself so that I will not demand too much of myself – yet, I commit myself to hold on to the list above as I see, realize and understand that doing at least this small amount per week/day will activate me.

I commit myself to make a timetable for these activities if necessary to support myself to actually push through the resistance and get moving.