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sunnuntai 27. lokakuuta 2013

Days 340-342: SF on Day 339: Balancing the social


25-27102013



A continuation to my previous post.


I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I stress about things I make myself so tired that it feels as if I cannot do my daily writing – the exact thing that would help me with the stress and the tiredness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I am tired, to rather entertain myself than find the cause of the tiredness and as the result of repetition create a behavioral pattern out of this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to the pattern of entertaining myself when tired instead of challenging myself to for example write about the tiredness and thus try to resolve it instead of escaping it.



When and as I see myself reaching for entertainment (TV, games, food) when tired, I stop, I breathe and I realize I am trying to escape my tiredness into entertainment. I realize that the entertainment will not help me with the tiredness as it will only make me more disoriented and exhausted, and that what will actually help me recover is resting and dealing with the cause of the tiredness. I breathe and return myself into my body and I check my physical state to see how exactly I am tired. If the tiredness is of the kind where I would be ready to fall asleep, I make the necessary arrangements to get myself to sleep as soon as possible. If the tiredness is not the kind where I would be sleepy but where I am worn out, I ask myself what I have done during my day to cause such a weariness. If necessary, I will write about the points that arise from this self-dialogue. If I am still not sleepy but the weariness persists, I will find some activity that I am able to do within the weariness until I tire enough to sleep the rest of it off.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about passing my exams and thus feel guilty every time I do something other than study, such as spend time with friends, hobbies, chores or writing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I don't need to pass my exams at one go, and that if I do not have enough time to study for the first exam, I'll have plenty to pass at the second or third attempt.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I study at the expense of my well-being I am in fact sabotaging myself, because when I neglect some facets of my life for the sake of others I am not supporting myself to live a balanced life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to set myself a standard of passing all exams at first attempt, wanting to be a “star student” that doesn't get stuck with single courses unfinished.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge students who get stuck with some courses that they cannot pass no matter how many times they try, not realizing that I am terrified of being in such a position myself because of the powerlessness of not knowing what else I could do to pass the fucking exam already.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will face a “wall” with my studies where who I am is “not enough” to understand the study material and that no amount of practice will be able to surpass this obstacle – not realizing that there is no such thing as “talent”, a magical quality that others inherently have and others don't, which is why some people succeed and others don't – and that if I do face an “obstacle” that feels “impossible” it is simply because I accept and allow myself to feel overwhelmed by material that other people just like me have created with their human brains and minds and hands, which is something I am capable of understanding (because it is something I might as well have created in the other people's shoes!) as long as I break it down enough and allow myself time to “take it in”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that passing an exam, no matter how difficult, is not impossible but a matter of steadfast practice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear getting “left behind”, not realizing that no matter how many people I compare myself to I am still HERE as myself with the knowledge and skills that I have, and that who I am now as knowledge and skills can be rehearsed only from HERE one word at a time, one movement at a time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be impatient with myself and get frustrated when I study slower than what I expect of myself, not realizing that I cannot force myself to learn by pushing harder, but that I can assist myself to learn by slowing down, taking the information in one word at a time and allowing myself time to process and understand what I have read and place it into context.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel frustrated when my study technique where I actually try to understand things is “too slow” for the university schedules, and then try to adjust myself to the university schedule requirements, not realizing that the university schedules have not been designed to fit everyone and that if I study as fast as the schedules dictate, my learning will suffer and decline.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame the study schedules for being “impossible”, not realizing that they have been created with the assumption that I study nothing else than my main subject AND that I do not work while studying, and that they cannot thus work for me as they are, making it MY responsibility to make them work, which is perfectly possible and a matter of simple planning, organizing and letting go of my “star student” standards.



I commit myself to study the given material with the pace I require to actually learn, process and understand within and as the realization that passing an exam (gaining merit in imaginary realities) is secondary to my process of learning (expanding in the practical reality).

I commit myself to experiment with different study techniques to see what would work best for me.

I commit myself to investigate what time of the day I am most “responsive” to studying and to utilize that time of the day as well as possible.

I commit myself to support my well-being – which reflects directly to my ability to study – by taking care of my diet, exercising daily (if only a little), sleeping enough / not too much, sharing life with other people and reserving time for re-creation (creation, building and self-expression).

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to go into an energetic “high” from the joy, excitement and happiness I have felt within the social groups and environments I have entered recently, thus losing my stability now as the “high” is starting to wear off.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to slip from one polarity into the other, crashing from the “high” into the “low”, by feeling like there's something “missing” when I'm no longer spending as much time with these people because of practical reasons (we all work and study).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my feeling of happiness, joy, enjoyment, fun, excitement and being relaxed and motivated dependent on the people I am with, thus feeling like all this is “missing” when I'm not with these specific people and filling the void with depression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear of abandonment to moments that remind me of past events where I have experienced myself to have been abandoned and excluded and where have felt like an “outsider”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to construct a fear of abandonment based on events where I have experienced loneliness and alienation, connecting memories of the past within my mind into a system that is triggered when my environment HERE resembles my past environments, within the moment of reaction believing and perceiving that my environment HERE is what I have interpreted my environments to be in the past (hostile, unwelcoming, estranged) and thus not actually looking at what is HERE but instantly “painting a picture” over the reality before my eyes, thus responding with depression and becoming withdrawn, making myself more difficult to approach and creating a situation where I alienate myself from others – looping around and fulfilling my own prophecy: “nobody wants to be with me”.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react with fear to my environment being “unwelcoming” because I believed and perceived (unconsciously) that I need others to welcome me to this world and this life to have “permission” to be here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to make myself dependent on the acceptance of others as I did not know (I had not been taught) that all Life has an absolute “right” to exist – that I do not need to get “permission” through anyone's acceptance because Life simply IS and exists – and that even though the acceptance of other people plays a part on the social field / the “social game”, this field/game is a conceptual, man-made reality that has no relevance unless I believe and participate in it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to believe and perceive that the acceptance of my peers in school had relevance because not being accepted on the social field had consequences in the actual reality (I was alone in class, during recess and after school; when I was not alone the company I had was not supportive).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react to not being accepted by my peers with embarrassment, sadness and depression as I had not learned (I had not been taught) how to accept, support and assist myself in my living NOR how to seek for support from others (everyone outside my peer group).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the reason I never trusted authorities (adults) with my childhood issues was because my parents were pretty unstable themselves and did not offer me the model of a “trustworthy adult”. *

* This point is pretty new to me, because I have always considered my parents to have been “good parents” - and they did do OK most of the time, which I am grateful of. But the more I have studied up on childhood development and psychology the more I have come to realize how I was fucked up from the start by my parents' unresolved issues (which there were aplenty) – one day I found myself thinking: “My parents should have never had kids.” This thought still feels really “bad” to me, as if I had no right to say such a thing, even though I know that I don't mean it in a bad way: to me most of the parents having children are way underqualified for parenting. It's no wonder my parents were a pair of those people.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seclude myself for many years by living alone and by not seeking company outside my activities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, during my solitary years, to not seek for company by my own initiative even when I would have really wanted to be in the presence of people because I was afraid of being rejected by those I would approach.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to suppress my desire to be with people because I did not know how to walk through the fear of rejection, thus accumulating the secret desire of having friends and being social.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty about getting carried away by the joy of now having company, not realizing that it is the outflow/eruption/discharge of the energy I have accumulated during my years of isolation, and that on some level this discharge was inevitable, although I am still responsible for directing myself within the discharge.



I commit myself to investigate how to integrate socializing into my life without having to sacrifice myself for it.

I commit myself to investigate the fear of others abandoning me if I do not “please” them.

torstai 24. lokakuuta 2013

Day 339: Balancing the social


24102013



I have recently been very busy with studying so I haven't had much time to spare for my daily writing, and the little time I would have had I have spent with some form of entertainment in order to “relax” or “unwind”. I have required “unwinding” because I've been stressed about failing my tests, and I have added on top of that stress by worrying about this pause from writing and by being distressed about some personal matters as well.

I haven't been too worried over any of this, but now it's turning into intense physical pain that I cannot ignore. During the weekend a couple of friends massaged my shoulders (they told me I was really stuck, which I was, but when I was stuck I was not in pain because I was so “crystallized” into my stance, like a fucking statue) and ever since I have been in pain constantly. My back has been in really poor condition because of studying positions where I have to hunch all the time and now the massage somehow released some physical points in my shoulders that I have previously “locked” underneath.

During the past couple of days (since the massage – thanks, guys, for probing around) I've been experiencing moments of depression. They stand out to me because I haven't felt depressed in a long time. They have occurred in moments where I have felt like I am “left outside” a group or a social activity, even though none of the moments have been such where I would have been refused access out of malice, but such where I have walked away voluntarily because it has been a practical choice.

This shows me how much the social life that I have built during these couple of months actually means to me: it has been immensely enjoyable and fun, there's been a sense of belonging and group spirit, I haven't had to be alone or secluded if I haven't wanted to. My life hasn't been this happily social yet independent in years (if ever) and I have simply been enjoying all of it, taking in the joys of being a social creature.

So now that the “high” is starting to wear off, I begin to fear losing it all. What if these people will abandon me? What if they start to resent me? What if I alienate my friends? What if I will lose all this “happiness”? Thus in moments of separation the fear is triggered - “what if I will never have it this good again” - and because my mind is used to such patterns since childhood, I start thinking of theories to support the negative outcome / worst-case scenario and I make myself depressed. In the beginning everyone has been kind of hyped about these social circles, but now that things are kinda stabilizing back to “normal” (people return to living their lives on their own terms, not sacrificing everything for the social activities) it's like there's a withdrawal that for me turns into heavy depression. And the answer to that is NOT to hang out with people more, no, but to look a what all this socializing has been “fulfilling” in me and what is missing when I'm not socializing.

Again (talking to myself), I do NOT mean that being social and having friends is a “bad” thing. I have made myself believe that solitude is a “good” thing because I have feared reaching out to people, and I have even demonized spending time with friends simply because I have been jealous, sad and depressed for not having that kind of a stable social environment myself. So what I'm dealing with here is the addiction and attachment to having company, so that I could bring myself out of the polarities (refusing all company – being dependent on company) and utilize the social aspect of life in a way that supports the well-being of all.

Will continue with SF.

lauantai 10. elokuuta 2013

Day 288: Fear of a group disowning me


08 & 10082013

Both a symbolic and a concrete depiction of what group work can be.


Before and during this trip I made several decisions on how to reorganize my life. My main occupation is changing from restaurant work into studying, and I am happy about that, even though I will be doing restaurant work as a part-time job to be able to support myself. I have been working through my disdain towards restaurant work and at the moment I do not feel resistance to it, although I do think that I will have to return to this topic when I actually start working again and face the points there that I haven't yet dealt with.

I am happy to be studying because I will be “allowed” to educate myself as an occupation, as a main responsibility. This will allow me to focus on self-development more than ever since childhood when my parents took care of my living. Many people have told me that studying is hard, and I am prepared for it, I know it's not going to be a peachy fantasy scenario of a Hermione sitting in a magical library with piles of books and magical answers – the reality of having to read through piles of books is really darn harsh, lol.

So, to make room for this completely new kind of an occupation - as I do not yet know what exactly it's going to be like, how much time it's going to take, how I change as a result – I have decided to no longer participate in theatre or movie projects. Cutting down on filmmaking is relatively easy because the group that I used to work in kind of collapsed and is no longer functioning, and not giving into the temptation to roll into castings is not a big deal since I didn't do that much anyway. But theatre is an entirely different challenge. I have literally lived in that theatre for the past 14 years of my life (and as I am only 24 years old, that is quite a lot). I enjoy the work that we do because it allows me freedom of expression and possibilities to try new creative things, new media, new venues, new ideas. I also very much like the people there because they are my friends as well as partners – they are the only solid group of friends that I have – and this is the reason I started to write about this topic today, because I realized I am tempted to waver from my decision simply because I miss these people and would be overjoyed to spend time with them. I feel like not participating I would be missing out on something, and I fear that the group will stop recognizing me as a part of them. I fear that I will lose them.

So why am I attracted to their company? What is it I receive when I am with them? Who am I with them? How do we spend our time together? And why do I see them “special” enough to feel that I am losing something essential by not having them as a constant part of my life? There will be other people, after all - I will not be alone – and I am not turning my back on these people completely and burning bridges, no. There is nothing personal in recognizing the reality of there being limited hours in a day and how that affects the formation of my social circles.



Rambling:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the people who have been participating in my self-expression have something to do with my self-expression, that my self-expression is dependent on these people, not realizing that even though these people provide the circumstances in which I have opportunities to express myself in certain ways, I am the one moving myself to take these opportunities and thus the one to take credit for what I do and live as.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I can be grateful for the circumstances these people have provided through their own self-expression without making it a point of dependency.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my surroundings are responsible for who I am within them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am responsible for who I am within the surroundings I am, and that I am also responsible for being within those surroundings in the first place; I never just “happen to be there”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give credit for / direct blame towards my surroundings (people, facilities, activities) for who I am within my surroundings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give credit for my self-expression for the people in my surroundings when in fact I have accepted and allowed myself to express myself a certain way by not being afraid of the response of my environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel “safe” to express myself with the people in my theatre.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even with the people in my theatre I am expressing the personality I am comfortable with in that environment – the “who I am” of theatre – and that I rarely go past the limits of my comfort zone even within theatre, and even then within the guidelines of that specific theatre culture.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in theatre I am “free” in my self-expression, when this is in fact not true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I am not in the presence of the people from theatre, I will be unable to be “free” in my self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what I have defined as “free self-expression” within this theatre context is a very specific kind of form of expression which I rarely utilize in any other social environment – and that the fact that this expression is rare does not mean that it is “more true” than any other form of expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear utilizing this kind of self-expression in other contexts because I have feared that it will not be understood and that people will then judge me.

[I have been expanding the limits of this little by little. For example, there is a theatre exrcise I have used on the streets: I imitate the different ways people walk (without getting caught, lol) – not to mock them, not to build a caricature, but to understand why they move the exact way they do. This has been a really cool way to learn about physiology, character building and personalities.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will judge me for singing, dancing, improvised movement, using my voice unconventionally and using touch in communication because these forms of expression are not common in most people's everyday lives.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the fact that these forms of expression are not present in people's everyday lives means that they are not wanted – not realizing that the reason these forms of expression are not present in everyday lives is because we as a civilization have habitualized ourselves to a very narrow scope of expression, and that to broaden that scope is to introduce these forgotten ways of self-expression through re-habitualization – by simply doing it and encouraging others to join in.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that utilizing these tools of self-expression (sing, dance, voice, movement, touch) would result in nobody understanding me and nobody joining in – not realizing that it would not matter even if nobody expressed acceptance if my actions indeed were self-expression, which in itself is self-acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that self-expression is self-acceptance – to express myself is to face and embrace who I am in that point of time and space.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will focus on how “well” I express myself (how well I sing, dance, move etc.) and thus become inhibited from joining in – which is the opposite of what happens within (our) theatre, where joy of expression is primary and skill secondary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the reason why people are likely to not join in with these forms of expression outside of theatre is the fact that they have not had the opportunity, the support nor the tools to develop such self-intimacy and self-confidence that one learns when doing performing arts – and that it is thus unreasonable to expect people to know how to “join in” when all they have done throughout their lives is suppressed sitting, walking and talking.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will become alienated from this group of people when and as I stop participating in our usual activity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I do not participate in theatre work these people will see me as “not one of them” and that I will lose their acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that no matter what I do and don't do with any person in this world, I am one with and equal to each and every living being and thus cannot become truly separate from anyone as alienation is an illusion created in the mind; In the physical reality we are of the same matter and of the same LIFE no matter what thoughts may run through our minds.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I fear “not belonging” I simultaneously desire “to belong”, and that as I within this desire already state that there is something I am not part of, I myself create a separation inbetween me and the others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that regardless of my fears and desires I am already a part of everything and that nothing can thus be taken away from me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust these people to appreciate me for who I am even if I no longer wish to support the things they do.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to please people so that they would like me – not realizing that it is not “me” who they are then appreciating but my representation of who I believe they want me to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see my theatre group as something I have to “earn” my way into through actions that are considered valuable, not realizing that while this is to an extent true (if I do nothing within a group then I am not really a part of it) these “rules of access” are man-made that can be abused to distance myself from the physical reality where we are all just people of equal value, not judges who judge each other, pass punishments and grant each other privileges.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though I will no longer spend time with these people as much as before, which will lead to us developing apart from each other (not necessarily to opposite directions) and having less to do with each other in our lives, I am not separate from them in fact and thus do not have to fear losing anyone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing this group of friends because to me they represent functioning groupwork and a supportive social environment – things I haven't found anywhere else yet on this scale.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to introduce and construct functioning groupwork and supportive social environments myself into places where they do not yet exist based on what I have learned while working in theatre.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to stay within my theatre environment because there the above-mentioned concepts already exist and work and thus I don't have to implement anything new to make things work.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear leaving theatre behind and moving onto new social environments and new challenges because there I would have to take what I've learned and adjust it into practice in circumstances where it might be strange, difficult and effortful – not realizing that in terms of development (mine and others') this might be exactly what needs to be done precisely because it is uncomfortable.



Conclusion:

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the end of an era.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive life to consist of “eras”, as if life was split into chapters like a book, not realizing that in reality there is only this one constant NOW-moment and that perceiving time to be divided in “chapters” always chains me into the past and/or the future as a chapter consists of a beginning, a middle and an end – all of which do not exist in the NOW-moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though one form of interaction will not be present in my life for now, I am not limited from interacting with these people in different circumstances if I so will.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself from seeing all the possible ways of interacting with these people because I have wanted to hold onto the old familiar way of interacting with them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see these people as individuals but as a group entity, not realizing that this approach limits me from seeing the possibilities each individual or different formation of the group offers.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have been emotionally attached to the group entity – my own conceptual creation that represents acceptance and companionship – and not the individuals themselves, and that what I fear losing in therefore also not actually real, which means that my “loss” is actually an illusion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that in reality I am not losing anything at all.



I commit myself to give myself time and space to re-shape my life into such where the social relations I invest my time into are enjoyable, constructive, supportive and based on self-honesty.

I commit myself to investigate what the difference is between having a relationship based on honesty and one based on self-honesty – in other words, I commit myself to check my definitions of the words “honest” and “self-honest”.

I commit myself to utilize the tools (voice, movement, touch) I have acquired and adopted through performance arts in all areas of my life within and as the realization that while allowing myself to do so I also encourage others to broaden their “vocabulary” of self-expression.

I commit myself to utilize what I have learned from team work in theatre by experimenting with it in university environment and study work.

perjantai 21. kesäkuuta 2013

Days 261-262: Pushing myself to be social


20-22062013



Today I realized that the awareness of the possibilities of the situation I am in does not mean that I'd have to seize each and every one of them. I have lately felt that I am somehow supposed to be socializing all the time with the people I come across and so I have been feeling guilty if I haven't, pushing myself more and more to open up next time.

I have been pretty worn out for the past few days because of health conditions and haven't felt like doing much simply because there isn't much I could do in these circumstances. Today I took a boat trip to a neighboring island and sat at the rear enjoying the ride with a few people sitting close by. Because I was at a talking distance to the others I felt like I “should be” talking to others, taking the opportunity now that there were people around me. But I was worn out, I just wanted to bask in the scarce sunlight and enjoy the sea, I didn't really want to talk to anyone. So I had another look at my situation. I made myself aware of all the opportunities present: I could talk to person A; I could talk to persons B and C; I could change my position to talk to the people inside the hull; I could focus on the activity at hand (riding a boat); I could focus on the environment (the sea); I could focus on my sensations. Once I had made myself aware of all these possibilities that I saw to be present, I realized that I was not obligated to choose the social dimension, and that the social dimension was just one of the dimensions present. I then made a decision to exclude the social dimension (for the time being) and take advantage of the possibilities of the physical environment – and so I had a very enjoyable boat ride during which I focused on myself, physical sensations and movement. It was an experience that was not social, but that doesn't make it any less valuable.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel obligated to be social.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that in order to make a moment worthwhile I need to utilize its social dimension, not realizing that the social dimension is just one dimension of an experience and NOT more valuable, meaningful or worthwhile than all the other dimensions of an experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a belief that the social dimension is more important than the other dimensions of an experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to drive myself to be social out of fear of missing out on something valuable/meaningful/worthwhile.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear missing out on socializing because as a child when I was bullied by being excluded from my group of friends I defined socializing as something “inaccessible” and “valuable” that I craved for and felt wronged for being denied access to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will be excluded from the social dimension of an experience and that I will be helpless to do anything about it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to prevent being excluded from socializing by initiating contact with others before they turn against me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear social situations because I fear that people will group up against me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to situations where there are people around me being social because I perceive their bonding to be something that excludes me from socializing.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exclude myself from being social by perceiving and believing the bonding of others to be an act that excludes me when in fact this exclusion only exists as long as I believe in it and submit to it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear approaching people who are socializing with each other because I believe I will be excluded as a punishment for intervening with their “special moment”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe socializing to be a “special moment” between selected parties which no one else should interrupt.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that a social situation comprises of all those physically present, not just those who have directly addressed/recognized each other, and that in a social situation all movement and interaction is “allowed” and all limitations are imagined.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I do not participate in socializing early enough others will define each other as “a group” and me as “an outsider”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to approach people out of the fear of being left outside of a group.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the concept of a “group” that forms as a consequence of social bonding is in fact imaginary as it draws boundaries and lines that do not exist in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the concept of forming a “group” through social bonding at its core supports inequality because it inherently excludes some people and “permits entry” to others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being seen as an outsider because I have experienced myself to have been limited through this definition.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to be social even though I have not asked myself why I resist being social – why there needs to be pushing in the first place.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to force myself to socialize without being aware of why I'm doing it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to socialize because I have tried to achieve an ideal where I would not be “an outsider”.

  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create an ideal scenario where everybody would like me because I have feared the opposite of being liked, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can only achieve this by being social with everyone - by presenting a likable appearance of myself to others before others conjure their own opinion of me without my participation.
  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will form an unfair and untrue opinion of me based on what they perceive me to be without giving me a chance to show who I am - not realizing that by living within and as this fear and acting according to it (by either isolating myself or pushing myself to socialize) I am in fact showing myself as my fears and insecurities through my actions.
  • I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I become "an outsider" (not participating in a group) I may have contributed to this outcome in some way.


I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to push myself to socialize because I have thought that “I should socialize” without asking myself why and without being aware of the search for the ideal that drives me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have (often) motivated myself to socialize through fear of being left outside the group and becoming “the outsider”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty if I “miss” an opportunity to be social and blame myself for “failing” - not realizing that setting myself impossible standards and punishing myself for not achieving them is deliberate self-sabotage.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react to my friends excluding me from the group by creating a dramatic mind-image of the situation where all others had turned their backs on me and I was standing alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to look at this mind-image and feel ashamed for being the lonely one as I had defined [being in a group] a “good thing” and [being outside a group] a “bad thing”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe this definition I have learned as a child and live according to it unaware during my adult years.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define being alone as a negative thing and to give it a negatively charged name (“being the outsider”) when in fact being alone is a state of equal value to being in a group, and that the only difference between them is the different set of possibilities they offer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to define [being in a group] a positive thing because being with my friends allowed me to enjoy the social dimension of life in a safe, familiar and comfortable way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself as a child to react with fear when my friends excluded me from the group because I had never socialized outside of that safe, familiar and comfortable setting and lacked the mental tools (self-confidence and courage) to find social fulfillment by actively creating myself new circumstances to do that in (i.e. by finding new friends).

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I have also gone to the other extreme and isolated myself from people into solitude out of spite. This, however, is a whole subject of its own and I will not write about it this time around.

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When and as I see myself reacting with fear to seeing other people socializing with each other – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am not excluded from the social situation because I am in the same physical space with the other people and thus have every opportunity to join into the socializing. I realize that my perception of the situation is not in accordance with the physical reality, and thus I focus on breathing, return my awareness to my physical body and, once I stand as my physical body, I move my focus to the space around me in order to become aware of the possibilities of the circumstances I am in.

When and as I see myself thinking “I should be socializing” or asking myself “should I be more social?” - I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that there is nothing I “should be” doing ever anywhere, and that the use of this word indicates judgement towards who I am in that moment. I realize that if the situation allows I have the opportunity to be social, yet not the obligation to. I breathe and return my awareness to myself as a physical being within a space and I assess my opportunities within that space. I take note of any signs of resistance towards socializing and dissolve them with self-forgiveness and breathing. If this does not help, I make a commitment to open up the point in writing. Otherwise I proceed to making a self-honest decision about whether or not I will take the opportunity to socialize.

I commit myself to investigate the process of “bonding” while forming a group within and as the realization that forming a “special” bond to one being automatically excludes all others and sets one to a higher position in contrast to others, and that the process of “bonding” thus creates and upholds inequality.

I commit myself to NOT participate in group activities in such ways that would exclude those currently outside the group, for example by restricting the possibility of others to join in to the group activity.