Day 347: Gender equality in relationships

04112013

Which one's at the top? Does it even fucking matter?

I have recently come to face some conflict in my current relationship scheme. Basically the conflict is with me and another individual on the terms and principles of a relationship: how and why can a relationship be built here between me and this other – or whether it's better for both not to try and build one. This point became impossible to dodge when the relationship got more intimate, because I did not see it wise to participate in sex with another possessed by lust. Despite me knowing that I am doing “the right thing” by actively directing the situation, addressing what's going on and thus consequently also refusing to “go with the flow” (be on autopilot), I am faced with a fear of loss and abandonment as I challenge the relationship and direct the situation to an area of uncertainty. I am now here to walk through the fears that surfaced within me to assist and support myself to further direct the situation according to what is the best for all involved instead of being directed by my fear of ending up alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear ending this relationship because I would then have to start over with someone else and go through all the trouble of building the foundation for a relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe that building the foundation of a relationship is “burdensome”, “difficult”, “stressful” and “tiresome”, not realizing that I am creating this experience by resisting all the things included in beginning a relationship (opening oneself up in self-honesty and being exposed as who I am; communicating about every aspect of the relationship).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist communicating about every aspect of a relationship openly in self-honesty because I have never learned to (I was never taught how to) do that and have to now push through the silent, non-communicative behavioral patterns I have learned instead.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent talking about every aspect of a relationship with another person because I am uncomfortable with most of the vocabulary involved as every word is Really Fucking Loaded with all kinds of emotions, feelings, images, memories, fears and expectations, which makes discharging the words by using them over and over again and thus releasing the energetic charge something that requires a lot of effort and stepping outside of my comfort zone frequently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I don't need to re-learn and claim all of my vocabulary in one go, but that it is in fact enough that I consistently do a little and push the edges of my comfort zone a little further – and that this process of learning how to communicate is nothing to fear as I am able to support and assist myself through the small steps that I am taking.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent going through the process of “explaining myself” to another person – going through the process of familiarizing another with what my life is and has been like – not realizing that this process can be taken as an opportunity to look at self and re-assess the “big picture” of my life, and that not all of me has to be explained and specifically shown to the other, because a lot of the relevant stuff comes across without me even trying – in other words, the other is capable of picking up information just by observing me over time.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resent beginning new relationships “over and over again” because of the “trouble” I need to go through when getting familiar with a whole new person, and to thus fear the end of a relationship because it means my efforts have been “in vain” and that I am going to have to go through the same “trouble” again.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I am wasting my time getting to know new people and not managing to create anything sustainable with them - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “ending up alone” (not having a partner and being too old to have children of my own) by wasting my time with the wrong people – not realizing that it is not necessarily the people that are “wrong for me” but my method of selecting the people I attempt to build relationships with and the way I conduct myself within these attempts.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for being “wrong for me” and “wasting my time”, not realizing that it is ME who is wasting my time by not evaluating the situation according to self-honesty and directing it accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get attached to the people I am in a relationship with and not want to end the relationship even though it seems the most reasonable choice, because I fear being alone again and not having all the support and comfort a relationship offers.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to dramatize the situation by reacting with fear and despair to the practical choice of ending the relationship, thinking “oh no, then I'd be all alone again, sitting here in my flat all alone with no one to share my life with, woe the loneliness and grimness of my life” - not realizing that this is the case only if I choose to seclude myself again and not seek for social company elsewhere.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make ending a relationship appear bigger than it actually is by telling a story of my life where I am like a character in a book whose life I have no directive control over – not realizing that my life is NOT a story and that I DO have directive control over my life, which means that no life event is actually “big” on any other level than the practical level – within which in this case, there being no children, common activities or property involved, there would be very little practical changes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I would have to again go through the process of learning to be intimate with another (physically and mentally), going through the tension, release and relaxation, not realizing that this process is in fact becoming easier each time I do it with a new person, taking me closer to the goal of being able to be comfortably intimate with any living being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that trying out a new relationship that ends up not working out is a “waste of time”, not realizing that every time this happens I learn how to be more self-honest, straightforward and efficient about this process and learn valuable things about who I am at the moment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust that eventually I will be able to “scout” people efficiently enough to find someone who would be compatible with me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for “screwing up” every time a relationship doesn't work out, not realizing that I am learning through trial and error as within any learning process.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a woman is worth nothing without the ability for sex and reproduction.

• This is a point that came up when I refused to have sex and faced the (suppressed) disappointment and frustration of another. I knew it to be inevitable considering the energy possession the other was in, but despite this knowledge I was not prepared to face another exerting their experience on me. I took the reaction personally as I have done in all of my previous relationships when there have been situations where my participation in sex was in some way “not good enough”. There is this very clear image in my mind of a man turning his back to me in disappointment, this gesture telling me that I'm worth nothing and a disappointment to another, and it triggers a huge experience of self-hate and despair in me. This image has probably been ingrained in me through popular culture (TV, movies, music, video games, porn, literature) as well as through all of my experiences with men where the subtle hint of disappointment has been present when sex has somehow not been what it was expected to be. The history of mankind carries this positioning of men and women with it, and it is still very much visible even in us extremely civilized and educated scandinavian(/western/european) men and women.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to support the belief that women are worth nothing without sex by judging myself to be “not worthy” when a man appears disappointed when concerning sex with me.

• I am talking heteronormatively here even though I am open to intimacy with both sexes because this issue is linked specifically to men and masculinity; the point might be there with a masculine/dominant woman, but I wouldn't know that as I haven't come across such a situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for a confirmation that in this situation I would not be judged for not fulfilling the role of the sex puppet that I believe and perceive is expected of me, getting anxious, agitated, and nervous as that confirmation that would tell me that “I'm OK” is nowhere to be found.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make my stability and sense of self-worth dependent on external validation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when the other will not discuss the situation with me despite my attempts to do so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that another has been in the relationship only for sex based on the “signs” I have picked up from his behavior, thus making myself feel like shit as I believe my self-judgement, not realizing that because of the gap in communication I do not actually know any of this because no such things have been directly expressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself based on guesswork.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself at all.

• At this point I had to pause my writing. I'd been struggling altogether just to breathe myself back to stability and pull myself through all the self-judgement, and when at this point I gave myself the kind of attention and care (words and gestures) that I would have wanted from men instead of being the target of disappointment, I broke into a kind of a purifying fit where I found intense hatred and rage towards men, as if a demon was released from within me. Shouting and crying it all out revealed a point of aggression I have never seen of myself before: a hatred and bitterness towards men and mankind – a regret that mankind has not been able to raise self-honest and stable people – a pity towards all the people who believe and perceive their desires to be the centre of the universe and act like big babies when denied what they want. I see that there is an unfair assumption in my mind about men. Because of what men have been I expect them to uphold it, and by expecting the worst out of men I support them to live out their worst.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame men for not seeing women as equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself as equal to men.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men I will not be “worth” it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see myself to be as “worthy” as men because men can override me with force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men I will face bad consequences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that when I claim my position as equal to men, men will want to hurt me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I attempt to claim my position as equal to men without fully understanding what it means for two genders to be equal, I already judge myself to be “less than” men and cause my own downfall.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not believe that all people are one and equal regardless of gender because I do not believe that who I am is enough to compete with male force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I would need to be a man to be equal to men – that I would need force to beat force.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it's not about a competition between the genders – femininity vs. masculinity – but about balancing out the polarity that is currently overriding with the other polarity and through the merging of both finding an equilibrium of humanity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that femininity – whatever the fuck that is – is not “strong enough” to balance out the masculinity in psychosis.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not appreciate and give credit to femininity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not appreciate the femininity in me – the opposite of being “strong”, “powerful”, “fast”, “efficient”, “dominant”, “successful” and a “winner” - I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing and utilizing the opposite of masculinity in me – gentleness, negotiability, care, listening, sensitivity, mercy, patience, compassion, expressiveness – because I have believed and perceived that in a world system the rules of which have been dictated by men I would “not make it”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “make it” in the world because I have believed and perceived that the world system exists for my benefit and that “surviving” in the race would make my life better – not realizing that the world system where “dog eats dog” and everyone's competing with each other is not fact designed to support all life – and that “making it” in the world system is thus trivial as the world system is a lie.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that while exposing and utilizing my femininity and balancing out both polarities within me might not get me anywhere in the world system, it will get me everywhere in life itself.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret a man's gestures based on the expectation that men only appreciate sex, thus believing and perceiving everyone I have come across to have been disappointed about sex in a more or less passive-aggressive way, not realizing that in all cases I cannot actually be sure of this as disappointment was not directly expressed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect men to only appreciate sex and thus build a world-view where everything I have seen and interpreted supports this image in my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to support men to only appreciate sex by expecting them to do so, through my behavior relaying the message that “this is who you are, right?”.

--

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hate men for being fucked up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what men need to no longer be fucked up is not hatred but compassion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame men for being fucked up, not realizing that the men did not raise themselves but were raised by this world when they were young and helpless, and that the men cannot be blamed for becoming fucked up, even though it is men's responsibility to no longer uphold what they have become but to question and redirect themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not support men to outgrow the masculinity possession the world is in by expressing forgiveness, compassion and mercy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it's a really fucking difficult task to outgrow a few millennia's worth of behavioral patterns and that men need all the support they can get to do it, as well as do women.

• I do realize that the situation has not been created and upheld simply by men but also by women: compliance may have been a survival mechanism, but it has still contributed to the problem at hand.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not support women to outgrow the masculinity possession the world is in, as there are plenty of women in addition to myself who have tried to “make it” by becoming men (neglecting the feminine).

• I need to hang out with women more.

--

Okay. How to bring this back to the original point? The moment where I go into self-doubt and fear of abandonment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the reaction of another personally as I have believed and perceived that I am the cause of the reaction, not realizing that who I am simply triggers an existing pattern in the other, which is something the other has created and not me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to learn to take this “disappointment in sex” reaction personally because I have had very few situations where the other would have been completely OK with sex not happening the way it's “supposed to”, therefore never getting the model of how the situation could be directed differently – never seeing, realizing and understanding how the disappointment would not be blamed fully on me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another will blame his negative experience (disappointment) on me and that I would thus be unfairly judged.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that sex has been the “deal breaker” in all of my relationships, not realizing that there have been many other factors contributing to the relationship not being sustainable, most notably my complete inability to communicate and direct myself - points which have just been most exposed within sex.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret the words and gestures of another to mean that he did not understand his experience of disappointment to have been caused by himself, not realizing that I cannot know this until it has been directly expressed, no matter how educated a guess I can make based on body language and tonality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to (within my mind) demand for a reply from the other because I have been frustrated and nervous and wanted to clear things out to have certainty and stability – not realizing that the other might need time to process on his own what has been said so far, and that my sense of stability is in no way dependent on the other, even though certainty of “what is going on” is dependent on him communicating with me.

--

I commit myself to not wait around for a reply from X and to thus stagnate in uncertainty, but to instead direct myself in every breath of my living to utilize and enjoy my life the best I can.

I commit myself to write about whatever points of fear, uncertainty and instability I may come across while breathing and moving myself out of this state of self-judgement into self-support.

I commit myself to support and assist X in whatever ways I can to become the best he can be.

I commit myself to slow down and express myself as clearly as possible to support and assist X to understand what I am trying to discuss, as a lot of the vocabulary and concepts that I use are new to him.

I commit myself to be patient with myself within the process of learning to build functioning relationships.

I commit myself to utilize the company of the women in my life to look for and investigate the femininity in them.

I commit myself to support myself to embrace femininity by spending time with feminine women – the exact kind of women I usually resent.

I commit myself to grow myself into a being that is a living example of humanity: femininity and masculinity combined.

Day 306: How dare you!

02092013

Lately I've been going through the point of reacting with anger to seeing injustice, ignorance or some form of wrong-doing. This point arose when I encountered a homeless man on the street and reacted to the behavior of the other people that were present. A friend gave me some perspective on what happens within that moment of reaction and I found it really helpful.

Just now I faced this point again within a different context, and because it happened to fit this topic precisely I figured I might as well just write it out immediately. Quite cool, huh!

Me and the other administrators at our theatre have been trying to arrange a meeting with one of the city officials to negotiate the terms under which we operate in the facilities we are using. For some years now there has been an ongoing passive-aggressive conflict between this specific city official and the chairman of our theatre group. Our chairman has spoken of this official with heavily emotional words due to her frustration, and while I have tried to keep a neutral position to this person and this mess we are trying to solve – because I simply do not know enough of it and have never even met this official - some of our chairman's words have gotten to me and I have in fact adopted some of her negativity. The “evidence” for her claims has been “convincing” enough for me to believe her interpretation of the situation.

I noticed this just now when I was checking on the details of the meeting we had agreed for tomorrow and found out that the official had to cancel the meeting and now suggested another date and time. I reacted by saying: “I knew it!” This meaning that I had already assumed this official to be disrespectful and inconsiderate towards us based on what I have seen and heard of her actions and attitude so far. There's six of us trying to fit our schedules with hers, and she won't even let us know until we call her the last minute?! That's fucking rude!

But I realized while I was huffing and puffing and swearing in my anger that I was doing it again: I already had an image / assumption about who this city official is based on what I have heard of her in the past; I was interpreting the happenings according to my image/assumption of her; I reacted according to my interpretation; I found my reaction justified; and thus, I held onto my reaction and just wanted to express my anger instead of finding a solution to what I perceived to be “wrong”/unjust (another being inconsiderate).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build an image into my mind of a person I have never even interacted with based on what other people have told me about her and my following interpretations of what her influence might have been on actual events/happenings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the justifications others have given for their emotional reactions towards this person, accepting and allowing them to react and be emotional as I have believed that it is enough if I do not react – not realizing that if there's even one person within the group who is allowed to remain angry it will influence the entire group unless we're all stable – which we are not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret each new “story” I have heard of this person throughout the years according to what I have heard of her in the past, remembering the anger of others, believing and perceiving that I'm looking at a chain of unjust events when in fact I do not know what actually happened in the past, nor what happened in the present; I do not know who this person is and the consistent anger of others is not “evidence” of this person's unjust nature.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be influenced by another's consistent anger/negativity/frustration by creating a belief that her anger is justified.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even though what I see here may actually have been a chain of unjust events, the reactions these events have triggered in others are still not justifiable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I do not know why this person canceled the meeting – there's a million reasons why one would have to cancel an appointment at the last minute.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume that this person canceled the meeting out of ill will, spite and malice based who I believe her to be – who she is as an image in my mind – not realizing that I have seen no actual indication of ill will, spite or malice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that second-hand information is never fully reliable no matter how much I would like to trust its source.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to further amplify my reaction of anger by thinking “I am very busy – I went through all this trouble to fit this into my schedule – it will be SO HARD to arrange another appointment – AAAAAA that's so fucking rude of her!” - blaming my own hardship* of arranging a schedule on another.

* A heaviness which I create myself and which doesn't actually exist in the physical reality outside of my conceptual reality.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified to blame a person I have defined as “disrespectful”, “unjust” and “ignorant” (blame-worthy) for my self-created hardship.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that arranging a schedule is difficult, burdensome, hard and demanding and that it is a “big” task – not realizing that people's lives constantly flow and fluctuate and change and that schedules must follow this nature of living – and that arranging a schedule is thus nothing but taking the building blocks of your life and putting them in an order that works best for all.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold onto a schedule that seems to work best for me, not taking into consideration that when there are other people involved I must find an arrangement that works best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger when and as I heard about the meeting being canceled because I assumed the meeting to have been canceled out of malice, not realizing that my interpretation of what's happening is not based on facts gathered NOW, in the present moment, but on images, stories and memories from the past.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is unfair and untrue to evaluate a person based on stories and memories from the past, as I then do not take into consideration who that person is NOW – and that NOW is all that actually matters in time and space as Life is but an ongoing NOW-moment; the past and present do not exist anymore/yet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I know who a person is even though I have never interacted with this person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give this person a chance to show me who she is; I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself a chance to see who this person is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify my reaction of anger by thinking “she is doing wrong” - not realizing that if she indeed is doing something that is not best for all, getting angry about it is not going to change anything.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not consider what I can do to find a solution for a situation where a lot of people are trying to fit their schedules together and instead lock myself into anger and blame one of these people for “making it difficult” - not realizing that if I experience arranging (this) appointment a “burden” it is my creation and thus my responsibility.

When and as I meet this person face to face, I commit myself to be aware of the “baggage” of negativity that I have adopted from others concerning her; and I commit myself to look at who she actually is, allowing no bullshit (assumptions, filters, guesswork, hostility, negativity) from myself.

I commit myself to check myself for any want/need/desire to be "above" this person as this approach through arrogance is nothing but a defense mechanism.

I commit myself to ask myself why I fear this person.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear this person based on the stories I have heard of her, not realizing that if she were in fact to abuse her position of authority and power as the stories tell, it would simply mean the end of our theatre as it is at the moment - not the end of the world, that is - and that even that moment of destruction would have many opportunities and open doors.

When and as I meet this person face to face, I commit myself to stop, breathe and stabilize myself into my physical body. I will engage in eye contact with her and if possible, seek for a physical connection point as well (i.e. handshake). I will expect nothing but the best of her and I will allow her to unravel as she will. I will live as an example by being self-honest, expressive and kind, yet allowing no bullshit from her or anyone else.

I commit myself to seek an understanding of this person as one with and equal to me by placing myself "in her shoes".

--

On a more general scale.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with anger when and as I see something I perceive and believe to be “unjust”, “ignorant” or “wrong” - within this reaction stating “this is not what I want MY world to be!” - thus manifesting my helplessness, worry and distress through anger, blaming another for “making” my world a bad place, not realizing that the actual cause of a human being acting “unjust”, “ignorant” or “wrong” is not in the individual alone but in all of society, in all its participants and its structures.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when I see another acting “unjust”, “ignorant” or “wrong”, blaming the other for ruining my reality, not realizing that who the other is within their “unjust”/”ignorant”/”wrong” expression is a manifestation of what the society and the world is – and thus also an expression of who I am, as I am a part of this society/world.

Therefore, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is not “the other” who is ruining my reality but all of us combined, and that it is our responsiblity to assist and support each other to correct what we can.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame others for their mistakes instead of supporting and assisting them to see their mistake and correct their behavior - and/or everyone making the same mistake by studying and addressing the actual cause of the misbehavior and living as an example of self-direction.

I commit myself to study the world I live in - my world! our world! - in order to see, realize and understand the reasons behind the current manifestations of injustice and ignorance so that I may be able to contribute to the solution to these issues.

When and as I see myself reacting with anger to an act of injustice or ignorance - I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am passing the blame for what the world is at the moment onto another person, when in fact we are all responsible for such manifestations of a dysfunctional world. I breathe and I check myself for similar behavior: would I act in a similar way and why? I remind myself that I do not know the exact reasons behind this particular act other than it most likely being connected to fear on some level. I realize that my anger is not justified, and I remind myself that acting through anger will only serve my ego, as I would be trying to enforce "correct behavior" to make my world appear "OK" again. I let go of my anger with self-forgiveness and breathing*. When and as my anger has dissolved I have another look at the situation to see what actually happened - not what I believe to have happened - and I continue with the situation according to common sense, self-honesty and what is best for all.

*If I fail at letting go of the anger in the moment of breath, I commit myself to continue writing about this point until it is done.

Days 205-206: Believing others dislike me

15-16042013

I've been digging deeper into my insecurity issues and today I have been flagging the tendency to believe my guess on how others perceive me. It's an immediate interpretation I make based on the “signs” I find in the behavior of others: body language, voice tonality, gestures, choice of words, looks, type of touch. At the very moment when I register one or more of these “signs” (movement of another) I grasp my first guess on why this person chooses to act like this and believe my interpretation without a second thought. I then change my stance within the situation according to my interpretation without stopping to consider the fact that I cannot possibly know what the other person actually experienced when and as they behaved the way they did.

This has got to change. It is crucial that I stop taking things personally, because when I keep on defining myself according to my guesses and projections (self-judgement through the eyes of others) I never face myself as I really am, as all I see are the numerous images, imagoes, personalities and characters that I have lived as and perceive and believe myself to be “supposed to” live as. The reason this is so deep-rooted lies in my childhood where I gave up on myself and my integrity and handed over my power to decide who I am to others* because it was the only way I could ensure acceptance when the support of my peers grew scarce.

[* To clarify: Others were not actually deciding who I am and how I should live, but this is how I projected my self-abuse onto others as blame, victimization and helplessness. I was the one who chose to direct myself according to what I believed and perceived others to want of me – the others were not responsible for my behavior directly.]

It has been really interesting to see how it affects the situations I live within when I stop believing my first guess and instead either wait for the other person to open him/herself up at his/her own pace or ask some simple clarifying questions. It appears that my first guess is most often incorrect. This shows me that it is vital to work on this point, because only when my starting point for interaction is to face others as who they really are will the interaction become relevant; only then will it hold some substance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my first guess on how another being perceives me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret the behavior of another according to the patterns I have constructed into my mind based on how I have lived my life so far instead of stopping the interpretations within the realization that they are nothing more than a guess and thus not an equivalent of reality as I cannot know what the experience of the other actually is as I am not “within their skin” but within mine only.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to always interpret the behavior of others based on my insecurity, thus using my interpretation as a tool to either elevate me or to bring me down.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my interpretation of the behavior of another to reinforce my insecurity-based self-image, be it positive or negative.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my perception of reality as a justification to remain as I am and to not change as I have projected my self-image back onto myself through “the eyes of others” which serves as a validation of who I have accepted and allowed myself to become - “others think I'm X, therefore I must be X”.

Therefore, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame my self-judgement on others as I have not wanted to carry responsibility for who I have accepted and allowed myself to become.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that others are to blame for who I have become, not realizing that even though we are all responsible for the world as a whole, as a system of bullshit we have all silently agreed to, we are still as individuals the only ones responsible for our own choices and our own movement as we are all alone within our subjective experience of life, where there is no one else who could move us from within but ourselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to “retreat” physically and mentally when and as I perceive another to treat me with disdain, malice, bitterness and/or some other form of ill-will where I have interpreted the other to “dislike” me.*

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to “retreat” physically and mentally when and as I perceive another to treat me with aggression, force, arrogance, anger and/or some other form of ill-will where I have interpreted the other to “hate” me.*

[*These are the points I faced today in my daily living.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take another's behavior personally, not realizing that what I am actually taking personally is not the other's actual experience but my interpretation of it – and that I am in fact getting insulted by myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to modify my behavior based on my own insult towards myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have believed another's behavior to signal a negative response, to “retreat” physically by avoiding eye contact, lowering my chin, slouching, breathing superficially and weakening my voice – not realizing that this is all self-sabotage and not a necessity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that when another exerts their emotions on me I should submit and comply, because when one exerts power the other one needs to lower their status in order to “keep the balance” - not realizing that this is yet another social contract/agreement based on polarities which can be undone through non-participation and is not a “natural law” embedded into the physical reality.

I commit myself to challenge myself to not lower my status when another exerts their power/dominance over me in order to see how it affects the situation when I do not become the polarity the other one seeks (or I perceive the other to seek).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is necessary for me to submit and comply when and as I perceive another to think less of me, not realizing that this belief is based on my childhood where I created this pattern as a survival mechanism for school / peer environment where I seemed to lose every battle that I engaged in and where it was thus more recommendable to not participate in the power struggle but to give up before even trying. [A link to the mother pattern I mentioned in a previous post.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe another person's perception/opinion of me to hold immense power because I experienced first-hand what it was when everyone's perception/opinion of me was negative – when I was “denied life” as play, friends, fun, support and development – when I was restricted from the “resources of life” because others' opinion of me was “not good enough”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing the acceptance of others because I once lost it at a vulnerable age where I was yet unable to fully support myself and thus experienced the destructive consequences of living in an environment that rejected me instead of supporting me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I am no longer an underdeveloped child – a work in process – but am now instead a physically fully developed adult human being, I am no longer unable to support myself regardless of my environment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that [the opinion of others] as a form/pattern in my mind still holds the [great] value I have assigned to it as a child, and that this trace of my childhood interpretations of reality still dictates how I direct myself today, some 15 years later.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question the importance I have assigned to the perceptions/opinions of others, believing that “it is important to be liked” yet never asking myself “why”.

When and as I pick up a “sign” in another's behavior and believe it “signals” something – I stop, I breathe and I realize I am going head-first into guesswork as I am interpreting the behavior of another to convey messages that have not been directly communicated. I realize that it is always a belief and a guess to think that I know what another being is experiencing, because I cannot know another being's experience as I am not within their experience but within mine only. I “take a step back” by looking at my experience with self-honesty, locating the possible energetic responses (emotions/feelings/reactions), realizing they are not me in fact but my activated mind system and stabilizing myself in breath within awareness of my inner movements. I then look again at the situation at hand and realize that the behavior of another has nothing to do with me personally. I allow the other to open themselves up and to show me who they are by leaving them space and/or by asking questions. I re-assess accordingly and I move on.

When and as I interpret another to have a negative opinion of me and thus “retreat” physically by avoiding eye contact, lowering my chin, slouching, pulling back my chest, breathing superficially and/or weakening my voice – I stop, I take a deep breath and I realize that I am diminishing myself as I believe I need to do so at the face of a dominant being. I realize that this is a pattern I have learned as a child and which has no functional value in my current living. I commit myself to move myself out of this pattern I no longer have any use for by breathing with all of my lungs, straightening my back with breath, lifting my eyes, looking at another directly on eye level and allowing my voice to flow from within my physical body. I anchor myself in breath and continue with the interaction.

[The act of “mentally retreating” most prominently occurs in faceless communication over the internet, and I've got to investigate it further in practice. It is present in face-to-face communication as well, but it is more difficult to notice because of the physical symptoms. I know it has to do with apologeticness, carefulness, watchfulness – I become extremely careful, hesitant and diminished.]

I commit myself to realize that when and as I take the behavior/actions of another personally I am actually insulting myself as it is my interpretation of the situation that is making me react.

I commit myself to open up my childhood experiences of being bullied in writing.

Days 191-192: Avoiding eye contact

31032013

I have been going through my insecurity issues and I have located one of its physical manifestations which is avoiding eye contact. I do not do this all the time walking around with my eyes in the ground, no, I look at people quite a lot actually – but there are certain triggers that “make me” turn my eyes away or avoid the look of another even if I know another is trying to reach me through eye contact.

I experimented with this while sitting in the bus. I usually sit on the benches that face all the other benches with my back towards the way the bus is driving, so I have a good shot at making contact with others, plus I like people-watching. I noticed a following thought pattern while looking at people and meeting their eyes:

• Why does he/she look at me (like that)?
  • Does he/she like me?
  • Does he/she not like me?
  • Do I look weird?
  • Maybe my hair looks nice?
  • Maybe they think I look cool.
  • Maybe they think I look odd.

And sometimes I go on following a certain thought and I create further guesses, assumptions, worst-case scenarios etc. about it, for example with “Do I look weird?” I start going through all aspects of my visual appearance, assessing whether it's possible that some of them is off or “wrong” or who this person would be if they disliked a trait like that, “maybe he's superficial because he doesn't like my clothes” - and all of this is absolutely absurd because none of it is true; it's just guesswork in my mind as the images of people I play with in my mind are not the equivalent of the actual people who live and breathe in front of me and whom I do NOT know and thus cannot assess/evaluate in a well-informed way.

So when the initial question “Why does he/she look at me (like that)?” appears, I turn my eyes away and start guessing for reasons and explanations. Even in situations where I have been the one to look at another first (which actually is in most of the cases) I react to the other looking back by instantly believing the look to “mean” something – that it bears a “meaning” other than that of simply looking at another, which is to receive visual information about one's surroundings and possibly to communicate. I mean, when I look at people I do it just to look at people. I don't do it to provoke reactions, to flirt, to irritate, to invade, to judge – I look at people just to look at people, to see who's present and to be open to any and all possibilities. So why do I fear others to do the exact opposite?

When I asked myself this question I came across two fears that link to specific memories.

1. I fear I will be rejected / I fear I will cause a negative reaction [memory: when I was 15 I looked at a strange teenage boy in the eye and he responded by saying aggressively “what the fuck are you looking at”. I reacted with intense feelings of rejection and shame.]
2. I fear my look will be misinterpreted to mean sexual interest [memory: I was around 15-16 when I was shopping for clothes and I happened to look at a teenage boy in the shop. He approached me and tried talking to me, I got frightened and fled.]

I have gone over the first (1) memory before, but apparently it is still linked to my fear of rejection somehow. I have realized that the boy in that situation reacted from whichever state he was in before I looked at him; I remember him looking like he was distressed and myself feeling sympathy towards him (this links to The Healer Character). My look was simply a trigger to his reaction and not the cause of it. I took his reaction personally and blamed myself for it, thinking “I shouldn't have done that, I will never do that again”.

The boy in the second (2) memory was an immigrant kid and I remember this being the first time I was ever in direct contact with a male of my age who was not Finnish – and I wasn't much in direct contact with Finnish boys either due to shyness. I realized there to be some cultural differences at play because boys who I was used to didn't approach girls in such a straightforward way. I got freaked out because the concept of relationships was really distant and alien to me, and so I just escaped the whole interaction and basically ran away from him.

So I'm looking at a fear of reactions that are “not wanted”. Why do I not want these reactions from others? Why do I resent these reactions from others? Why can't I just take them as they are – as the reactions of others and nothing personal – but instead find myself powerless in front of them?

--

01042013

Alright, continuing with this. I want to try a really practical approach this time. So the pattern I repeat is the following:

• I look at people
• I meet the eyes of another person
• I react with fear
• I turn my eyes away
• I go into guesswork
• I make conclusions, assumptions and guesses of another's motives
• I take action based on my conclusions, assumptions and guesses
  • I look back to the other / I keep avoiding the look of another / [other action]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another judges me / thinks less of me / attacks me when I look at them because of experiences in my past where I have created a survival pattern based on single interactions where the action [I look at another] has been followed with [negative response] which has led me to [feel rejected].

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another will judge me / attack me based on no other information about me than the fact that I am looking at him/her.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that others are (most likely) just as afraid of me as I am of them, and that any form of aggression that I may face when simply looking at another from a clear starting point is a sign of the other being afraid and defending themselves through aggression – and that the negative response of another is thus nothing personal towards me even though it may serve as feedback if I choose to utilize it so.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take the negative responses of others personally as if what another accepts and allows themselves to live as was on my responsibility even when my intentions have not been to provoke another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for the reactions of others and to look for flaws in myself to explain, excuse and justify the reactions of others – not realizing that this is to live as fear as I allow the reactions of others to define me out of the fear of not being accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ask “what's wrong with me” when/as another reacts negatively to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ask “what's wrong with me” when there is a risk that another may have focused their attention on me and might be forming a negative opinion of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize how many “maybe's” and “what if's” I participate in in the above-mentioned situation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive looking at another person to be “risky” because there's a possibility that the other will form a negative opinion of me and choose their actions according to their opinion of me and not according to who I really am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as the above-mentioned behavior that I fear from others by forming opinions of others based on immediate guesswork and choosing my actions according to these opinions instead of realizing I know nothing of the other person and that, if necessary, I will have to find out from the person him/herself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not embrace myself as I look at another person to engage in eye contact as myself, but instead already perceive myself to be less than who I am and escape the eye contact as I react with the fear of revealing myself to myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to walk around not embracing myself, not realizing that my fear of others is actually caused by my reluctance to stand within/as myself when faced with the eyes of others as mirrors of me – that the reluctance to be myself causes me to fear others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to turn my eyes away from another when and as I have reacted with fear to meeting another's eyes.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I have reacted with fear to meeting the eyes of another, to retreat and escape by turning my eyes away instead of stopping the fear, breathing and relaxing myself to just be within the eye contact, realizing that the fear is not valid as there is no real practical reason to be afraid as there is nothing in the situation that could actually harm me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear another's look as I have connected this to rejection and all that follows it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to charge the act of [another looking at me] with the fear of rejection, assigning [look] as the image where eyes turn to me with a negative value as I associate [look] with all the consequences of [negative opinions] (rejection, unfair judgement, being left outside the group, gossip, loneliness, not having friends).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that a look is just a look – a being with eyes taking in visual information in order to interact with its environment – and that any and all other values assigned to the act of looking are conceived in the mind and are in fact imaginary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my negative connotation to having eye contact with others is in fact imaginary as it overrides the physical reality with meanings that only have value in the mind-reality.

02042013

When and as I notice myself reacting with fear to meeting another's eyes and turning my eyes away to escape the attention of the other – I stop, I breathe and I realize that the attention of another is not in fact dangerous in any way. I realize that this is a habit that occurs when I do not embrace myself nor stand within and as myself when and as I interact with others. I then stabilize myself in breath, ground myself back into my body as physical self-awareness and look for the reason of my insecurity – why do I not embrace myself within this moment? How am I making myself less than I actually am? Once my starting point is clear I return to the interaction if possible/necessary.

I commit myself to stop believing in the assumptions, conclusions and guesses I make about others by working through my habits, patterns and beliefs according to which I have organized the reality into my subjective perspective of the reality so that my experience of the reality would be easier to comprehend.

I commit myself to stop blaming myself / taking the credit for the reactions of others by no longer asking myself “what's wrong with me” when another reacts negatively / “I wonder what's good about me” when another reacts positively.

I commit myself to realize it is useless to worry about the opinions and perceptions others may or may not have of me as all that matters is who I actually am HERE within breath and flesh and bone – and that if there is a practical reason for clarifying whether there is an opinion/perception of me and whether it is affecting another's actions or not, I may simply discuss this with the other.

I commit myself to challenge myself to break this habit by keeping my eyes up on the eye level and in front of me, not in the ground, in the sky or out the window, in order to be open and welcoming to the eyes of others.