Day 386: Back on track

15022014

It has been interesting to see what happens when I grow out of the habit of daily writing. Even though I have been going through many points in action, thought and conversation, and also occasionally in spoken self-forgiveness, I am unable to provide a comprehensive documentation of what I have in fact been going through. That is the benefit of writing: there is always evidence to return to, to remind myself with. The past few weeks have slipped by and I don't have a detailed recollection of any but the key events.

This is why, as my schedules are no longer / at the moment as tight as they were, I am returning to daily writing – or more precisely, to my more realistic goal of writing on at least 4 days of the week. I have found that having documentation of my motions is beneficial to my process and development both within the moment and also in the future, as I am able to reflect on the past relying on something more solid than my memories only.

I again have no idea what to write about, so let's see what I find here.

An interesting notion I am making right now as I write is that the way in which I write has somehow changed. I have been both reading and writing massive amounts of mainly scientific material lately due to my studies, and I guess the “firmness” of scientific text is seeping into the way I not only write but also think. This may prove to be a good thing, as it may help me organize my thoughts, emotions and experiences. I am not entirely sure what I mean by “firmness” here, but I think it has something to do with both fluency and clarity. In any case, it's cool to see that there is a difference.

I have been going through many interesting things lately, which I will try to make some kind of a list out of.

• building a partnership / relationship / agreement
  • uncertainty / self-esteem
  • fear of speaking up
  • impatience with another – how to disagree?
• building self-discipline to be able to study/work
  • doing a little at a time – the push to take the steps to study instead of caving in to entertainment
• physical body in constant pain – lack of exercise and effort
  • how to make time for exercise?
  • How to make exercise enjoyable?
  • How to push through the discomfort of moving myself?
• developing participatory leadership with children
  • treating children equally
  • stopping blame and guilting
• loneliness / solitude / socializing
  • “please recognize me” - fear of turning invisible – seeking for a “connection”
  • effort to socialize: why should others come for me?
  • Learning to enjoy men as people, not as potential partners

Quite the list! Lol, and that's not even all of it. Alright, the plan is I start going through these points little at a time, depending on which points are more prominent. It is really nice to be here again, in my writing spot, devoting this section of time for myself only – not in the fuzzy-warm-feeling kind of nice, but, I dunno, a tranquil sort of “nice”, lol. I am giving myself the attention and the care I need by sitting down to discuss with myself through writing. Thanks, me, I appreciate it!

Day 380: Continuing on Waking up efficiently

15012014

This post is a continuation to my previous post.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for sleeping “too much”, not questioning my definition of “too much sleep”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define 6 hours of sleep to be the ideal amount of sleep with no real evidence of this actually being the amount of sleep that my body needs to recharge, thus also defining less than 6 hours as “too little” sleep and more than 6-7 hours “too much” sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel guilty for not living up to my ideals, not realizing that my ideals have not been constructed according to the physical reality to function as goals that support my living, but that I have instead constructed my ideals based on what others appear to be doing and what I ought to do to be as good as others – to be accepted by others – to not be less than others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I cannot construct my sleeping patterns efficiently, I will have failed as a person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to measure my worth based on how efficiently and supportively I structure my life, thus feeling like a failure when something doesn't work out (such as sleeping at the moment), not realizing that my definition of “supportive structuring” is based only on how much I get done / how much I achieve or accomplish, thus ignoring e.g. my physical and mental well-being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that if I sleep more than 7 hours I am “wasting time” that I could instead use on “getting stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my body might need more than 7 hours of sleep depending on what it's recovering from, and that forcing myself out of bed without sufficient rest is to compromise my health as well as my ability to “get stuff done”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that “getting stuff done” (work, study, whatever tasks I have) is sustainable when and as and ONLY when it's done in consideration of the physical reality – such as the well-being of my body, the physical organism I inhabit.

• I commit myself to stop compromising sleep, rest and recovery in order to achieve merit in the eyes of others.
• I commit myself to arrange myself enough time for sleep, rest and recovery; In cases where I need to momentarily compromise my sleep/rest, I commit myself to arrange myself time to recover from this compromise sufficiently.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are two kinds of tiredness – a physical and a mental tiredness – and that when I wake up in the morning I am able to discern between the two, and thus also able to understand and decide whether to stay in bed or to get up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when I have woken up in the morning, to ignore my awareness of the fact that I am mentally tired and continue sleeping regardless of my awareness of this fact with the excuse that “I have nothing to do” - “I might as well sleep more”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I stay in bed out of mental tiredness I am escaping something in my reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect that getting out of bed is a burdensome task, thus anticipating the moment of getting up and all the things I need to do, thus creating a desire to stay in bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning routine (washing up, yoga, cleaning the dishes) because I have found some of the tasks difficult and burdensome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a resistance towards my morning yoga exercise because often when I do it I need to push myself over a threshold out of my comfort zone even though I know my entire body will feel better after the yoga.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give in to the resistance towards yoga, thus skipping some mornings and eventually not doing it at all, thus also making it easier for me to give in to the resistance to get out of bed at all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that expansion and growth requires constant pushing and discomfort before it becomes an effortless part of my living.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that to integrate yoga and exercise into my living – a form of physical self-care – I need to unwind the roots and habits of stagnation I have grown and become tangled up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that slouching, dragging my feet, sitting down and being still in the morning when I wake up is a habit of not moving – a habit that I can change and replace with another – and that I have learned this method of waking up by observing the people I grew up with.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my family's culture of waking up – making oneself as comfortable as possible to “soften the blow” – is not the only possible way of starting one's day.

• I commit myself to do my yoga routine each morning, unless I am physically unable to do it (sickness etc), as I now see, realize and understand that getting used to this small push every morning I get myself used to discomfort, thus supporting myself with all situations where I need to deal with discomfort in order to grow and expand. (This is pretty cool now that I think of it this way!)
• I commit myself to expand my yoga routine little by little, adding one move to the routine when and as the routine needs more physical challenge.
• I commit myself to experiment with other forms of morning exercise, such as taking a walk or running.
• I commit myself to do something physical every morning before I have breakfast.
• I commit myself to explore what else I could do before I have breakfast, for example writing, studying and meditation.

Also, an idea I got in the last post that I want to try out:

• When and as I do not have anything to wake up to the following morning - such as a meeting, a lecture or work - I commit myself to go through my tasks for the day in the previous evening and decide on the first task I will tackle the following day.

It's been working out well so far!

Note to self: the word "efficient" has a negative tone to me, and using it here makes it feel as if waking up "efficiently" couldn't be enjoyable but that I'd be gritting my teeth while doing it, lol. I'll return to this word and the concept of efficiency in posts to come.

Day 333: Sleeping patterns

12102013

Artist: Lucian Freud

During the past couple of months – ever since I returned from the trip I made during the summer – my sleeping rhythm and routine has regressed. When I first got back home I allowed myself to sleep as much as I wanted because I actually needed it: I was recovering from three months of constant environmental instability and physical strain. I made the mistake of allowing this to become a tendency. I've given myself permission to sleep 8 hours a night or more even though it's become clear to me that I don't nearly always need that much sleep. I've made it “impossible” to get myself out of bed when there's nothing forcing me to do because according to some excuse I “need” lots of sleep or “get to” sleep in, and then I end up spending the last two hours rolling around half-awake in a tormenting dream state. I feel tired and heavy when I get out of bed instead of being refreshed and rested.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify not getting out of bed when I first wake up after 5-6 hours by thinking I need to sleep more.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify sleeping in because the moment when I do come around after 5-6 hours of sleep doesn't “feel like” I have awoken, not realizing that I have defined “waking up” to mean that I feel fully alert yet heavy and disoriented, because this is how I feel like after 8+ hours of sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not remind myself in the moment where I come around after 5-6 hours of sleep that the tiredness I feel then dissipates when I get up and breathe myself back to this reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I need to sleep 8 hours every night, not realizing that I have shown myself that this is not in fact true even though I may occasionally need 8 hours of sleep.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to base this belief on my experiences from last year when I slept about 6 hours a night, worked 15-18 hours a day and ended up extremely worn out, not realizing that my weariness then was not caused by little sleep alone but also by the workload and stress I was under – and that I still survived with 6 hours of sleep a night.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not challenge this belief by setting my alarm to wake me up after about 6 hours, deciding to get up and seeing how my day turns out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold my current sleeping pattern by always setting my alarm to wake me up after about 7-8 hours, not realizing that even 7 hours is often too much.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I “get to” sleep a lot now that I don't have to go to work early every morning, not realizing that even though there is no one “demanding” for me to get up and do something, I would in fact have plenty of things to do if I did get up earlier.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe an perceive that I have “the right” to sleep in because I've already “done so much”, not realizing that if this “right” makes my contribution to the world less and doesn't really serve my actual benefit either, it's not a “right” but an excuse to stick to my comfort zone and be less than who I am / could be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to skip morning lectures after a night shift because I have believed and perceived that I “need” to sleep a full 8 hours a night, not realizing that by doing this I disregard the opportunities the university offers me in the form of a lecture.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to skip morning lectures as I have believed and perceived that by sleeping less than 8 hours I am not “fully alert” / “at my best” to learn anything during a lecture, not realizing that by thinking “I am not alert” I will cause myself to be more tired and less focused and will not even give myself a chance to try if I would in fact be able to learn something during a lecture despite the little sleep I've had.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a lecture is not “worth” getting up for, not realizing that a lecture is a rare chance learn socially and receive some mentoring, as most of my study time is independent and solitary.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place my momentary comfort (sleeping in) above long-term benefits (learning).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my disorganized living into sleeping so that there would be a little less left of the chaos that awaits me outside the bed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not take this opportunity to create new supportive structures into my life (e.g. morning exercise) because it has been easier to just sleep and escape the question: what do I want my life to be?

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the “chaos” my life is in and thus escape it into sleep, not realizing that I am able to harness this chaos and turn those opportunities into beneficial patterns, habits and structures that I will be happy to wake up to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear chaos and “freeze” within chaos, turning this panic reaction into anxiety which I then escape into entertainment (multimedia, sleep, food, socializing) – not realizing that I can in fact stop, breathe and ground myself into my own stability point and from that stance observe the chaos and create a structure to manage my life through.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear waking up because there are many things I need and want to be doing but have no structure to doing them.

I commit myself to try out sleeping less a night by setting my alarm to wake me up in approximately 6 hours and doing either half a routine of yoga or a half-an-hour walk/run outside (or a little less if I am in a hurry) straight after waking up without having breakfast. (Exceptions allowed if I am sick.)

I commit myself to cut down on snacking before going to bed by rather drinking water/tea than eating.

I commit myself to show myself that fasting first thing in the morning / last thing in the evening actually supports my well-being as my body doesn't get overloaded with food.

I commit myself to make “to-do” -lists of the tasks I need to do and design/revise each morning how to get them done.

I commit myself to explore how to make studying a part of my daily routine and how to structure the reading that I have to do.

Days 222-223: Fear of committing myself to working with children

02-03052013

My decision to study education sciences and a recent commitment to a project/task concerning directing a group of children made me realize today that I am actually committing myself to work with children “for real” - that as I continue on this “path” I will be working closely with children and concerning children in long-term. I realized I am frightened by this. There is something in how I relate myself to children that needs to be sorted out.

Firstly, I know myself to be afraid of children. I have defined children as “those who see through the lies” and have become wary in their presence, wanting to please them and have their approval and of course not getting it because my fear has been obvious. As I have been working through my insecurity and the roles/characters I have used to “survive” interaction with children I have been able to actually make contact with children, which has been awesome, although I still have ways to go.

Another thing is that I perceive working with children to be a “tiresome” and “effortful” “burden” because activeness, openness and energeticness hasn't been a “natural” state of being for me – I have been more used to solitude and passiveness. The position of being the one to get others moving or to direct the movement of others has seemed like an awful lot of work. Every time I have been doing directing work – even though I have volunteered for it – I have faced a huge resistance to face the group and activate myself and others. I have often required a year in between directing projects to “recover”.

And one more aspect, although I recognize this to be an excuse, is that I am afraid of the responsibility of directing children, of being a person who intimately influences a somewhat helpless being. What I actually fear here is that the children will revolt and “not respect my authority”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that it is not in “my nature” to be active, open and in motion because I have been more comfortable alone, closed and passive, not realizing that my current state of being is simply the result of how I have lived my life so far and what I've gotten used to, and that this is in no way permanent or inherent.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to stay within my solitary, introverted and passive state of being because it has been comfortable for me, not realizing that if I do not move beyond my comfort zone I will never expand nor change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is “my nature” to be solitary, introverted and passive because it has felt comfortable, not realizing that it only feels comfortable because it is a “safe zone” I am used to.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive comfort to mean that things are “how they should be”, never looking beyond my self-interest to see that my comfort results in the discomfort of many.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that things are “how they should be” when I feel comfortable, never mind the rest of the living beings in this reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive working with children to be “burdensome”, “tiresome”, “effortful” and “a lot of work” because it has required me to step out of my comfort zone, not realizing that walking myself out of old habits is not going to be a comfortable process as this expansion requires me to do things I am not used to and which feel new and strange to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the discomfort of doing new things I am not used to as this has required active presence, adapting and learning and thus meant stepping out of my comfort zone of passiveness.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist walking myself out of my old habits because that would mean I would no longer “get to” be within my comfort zone, not realizing that expanding myself means that my comfort zone will get wider and that what is now uncomfortable will no longer be uncomfortable in the future.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear letting go of what I am used to because I have feared changing into something that would no longer “have permission” to be passive – not realizing that as I change for myself the “old me” that wants to be passive will not be there in the future, and that I thus fear change because I believe my “future self” to want the same things as my “current/past self” - or rather use this as an excuse.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear committing myself to something “for real” because I feel like I would then be “tied” to doing something – not realizing that in order to get something done thoroughly, properly and carefully it is necessary to devote one's time and effort to one's task, because if not fully committed one is not giving one's fullest effort and is thus “half-assing” the task – and that this “tie” is not something one is forced to act upon but one that is willingly chosen.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear being “tied” to working with children because I am not sure whether it's the right profession for me – not realizing that my doubts mainly occur from the discomfort I am hesitant to walk myself out of and the fact that I do not know what exactly I'm “throwing myself into”, not realizing that nor does anyone who has not yet lived their future (no-one!).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making choices and living in the moment because I have feared that my choice will end up being a mistake, thus never making choices nor committing to anything, not realizing that by being afraid of possible future scenarios I stop myself from moving, and that the only way forward is through the uncertainty of not knowing – by living as certainty within and as breath.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear choosing the “wrong” profession, not realizing that if this would prove to be the case even after self-honestly looking at the problems/conflict I face within the profession – I could simply choose again and re-direct myself to do something else.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there are no “right” or “wrong” professions – only choices of direction, re-habitualizing oneself and getting oneself familiar with the subject and the conduct of its field.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define children to be “those who see through dishonesty” and thus become afraid of them as I have known myself to be dishonest.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself through my definition to see children as “more than” me as I have “given them power” to define me through their acceptance/rejection (defined myself according to my self-judgement as projected through others).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to please children by being something they'd “like” and “appreciate” because I have been afraid of their judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to appear as something that I believe children will “like” and “appreciate”, thus living as a character instead of being myself, not realizing that I am wearing a mask to hide myself as I believe myself to not be “enough” to be liked.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that for people to actually see me and like me for who I am I need to show myself for who I actually am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want the acceptance of children because of the position I have placed them in, not realizing that this position is completely imaginary and within my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame children for being “scary” when in fact the position from which children “judge others” is completely imagined by me and that experiencing children as “scary” is thus wholly my responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive the self-honesty of others to be judgement towards me as I have seen myself reflected from others, felt ashamed of myself and, rather than facing myself, blamed my uncomfortable experience on others, believing others to be the cause of my experience.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a fear of children and avoid their presence because of the discomfort I experience in their presence – not seeing the discomfort as an opportunity to look into myself with self-honesty but rather seeing it as a threat to my current state of being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself to be “bad with children” when I have failed to win their approval by appearing “likable”, not realizing that getting another's approval through appearances will not last even if it were to momentarily succeed and that this is not a constructive way of approaching children (or anyone).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define myself to be “bad with children”, believing myself to be inherently “incapable” of connecting with children, not realizing I am basing this belief on my dishonest approach to children the natural outflow of which is that my interaction with children is dysfunctional.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by interacting through appearances I create dysfunctional interaction as I do not stand as one with and equal to who I actually am in matter in the physical reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when and as I stand separate from who I actually am in matter I will conflict with each end every being I face unless they are aligned with my dishonesty.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear children because they are not aligned with my dishonesty and thus conflict with my dishonest state of being.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a worst-case scenario where children will “not respect my authority”, act against my direction and create chaos, seeing myself as a “failure” in the midst of this.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to have authority with children as I have been trying to “win back” the “high position” I have assigned to children in my mind, trying to be “more than” children so that their perceived judgement would not touch me – not realizing this inequality of power to be completely imaginary and that I am trying to beat my fear with actions of fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to “save” myself from the judgement of children by claiming authority over them, not realizing I am actually just avoiding facing my insecurity and doing myself a disservice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exert power on children because I have been afraid of them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abuse my authority position over children because I have been afraid of them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to control children because I have been afraid of them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to claim superiority over children because I have feared that if I didn't they would assume power to themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe interaction with children to be a power struggle which I have to win and am entitled to win “just because” I happen to have been born before them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to assume my perception of the “authority” of children to be true and never question this perception, thus positioning myself to children as if there was a battle to be fought instead of seeing children as my equals and interacting with them as my equals.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear treating children as my equals because I have perceived and believed there to be a risk that children would abuse this “moment of weakness” where I am not exerting my power to “keep them in check”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that there is a difference between abusing power and utilizing power.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive being stern in my consistent direction of children to be “too rough” on children and that they will end up disliking me, thus “softening” my approach to be “likable”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that giving into the desires of others is not the same as doing what's best for them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to compromise myself in my search for the approval of children.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be capable of directing and teaching children in a respectful yet steadfast manner – in a way that would not abuse children but also be effective.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid chances to learn to become a better director/teacher through trial and error as I have feared making mistakes, not realizing that mistakes are a part of all learning processes and that they are thus “OK”.

I commit myself to do my best in the directing project I will begin with children in September and to embrace this opportunity to learn new skills, work on myself and interact with different people.

When interacting with children, I commit myself to breathe and release myself of desires, fears and survival mechanisms and to lay myself bare within and as the realization that a child will see me for who I am whether I show it or not, and that it is thus useless to even try to hide.

I commit myself to stop “trying too hard” in the presence of children by stopping, breathing and becoming aware of the insecurity that drives me.

I commit myself to support and assist myself to move myself out of my old habits of passiveness and introvertedness when and as I direct a group (be it children, youth or adults) by resting myself upon my breath, allowing all tension to melt away from my muscles and engaging in eye contact with all participants.

I commit myself to look for myself in all the children I meet in order to realize we are as much human and as much alive and that in this we are absolute equals.

Days 195-196: Communication pattern from father - suppressing impulses & habitualized planning

04-05042013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 194: Communication patterns from parents

Father

This point has been coming up more and more lately and so I will deal with it first. I have a tendency (as do many others) to prepare for situations I am unsure of by planning them out in my mind. I may for example map out possible outcomes and their probabilities, think of different ways to say things and how different words/phrases/tones affect how my message is heard, calculate best possible ways to begin a conversation, practice “lines” in my mind (or out loud even) – and I have done this to such an extent that I have become really resistant to act on my initial impulse to do something. When I get an impulse to do something – for example bring up a topic of discussion or hug another – I immediately doubt my impulse by thinking “is that a good idea?” and freeze myself. Then I assess the situation through all kinds of assumptions: who I believe the other person to be, how I assume them to perceive me, what I guess their reactions might be, what I perceive to be “proper” in the context of the situation – and my automated responses and reactions to the other, which are also guesses as well as planning ahead, because when I perceive myself to probably act a certain way and believe it I am likely to act just so unless I stop being on auto-pilot.

There are environments where my resistance is lowered or non-existent. Theatre is such a safe place for me as it encourages self-expression in a closed circle of trusted people, and I am glad to have had a supportive environment like that when I grew up because the rest of my social environment was not as supportive or at least not as safe as it was. With certain people and places related to theatre I am really comfortable, “at home”, and allow myself to express myself without all the filters that are activated in “less safe” environments.

So as I can deduct from my experience, the reason for my resistance to act on my initial impulse is because I react with fear to the situation at hand. This may be because a) my stance within the situation is already fearful (i.e. I am in the presence of someone whom I perceive to be “scary”), and/or b) I react with fear to a trigger within the situation and become fearful within the moment (a person says something which I associate with a negative memory and access the past fear), and/or c) I react to my impulse with fear (I get an impulse to dance and judge myself because I perceive dancing to be a “waste of time”).

An example of this is a situation with a friend with whom I discuss about very serious and difficult matters which I/we make even more difficult by not directly addressing our relationship and the underlying friction that has been there for a long time already. There are things I am bothered by but which I stop myself from bringing up because I fear its possible consequences. This also spreads out on all impulses regarding this person: I freeze to assess all topics of discussion, not just the actual issue, because I fear that talking to this person at all might lead to a discussion on the actual issue. Here I have to deal with the fear itself, but also with the communication pattern of planning everything – I cannot wait and postpone the discussion by thinking “I have to be ready for it” - I've just got to do it. No more preparation. Today I actually managed to stop myself from acting upon this point: I had an impulse to bring up a topic of conversation, I froze, I doubted, “is this such a good idea” - but then I realized what I was doing and stopped the pattern. I breathed for a while, realized that I was accessing the same old pattern, let it go, returned to being empty and silent – and two seconds later the impulse came again and this time I seized it immediately and acted upon it. It was cool to see this can be done.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt myself and my inner movements and thus plan out words, phrases, tones, gestures and motions with which I perceive and believe the situation to be most likely to work out according to my wishes (avoiding what I fear).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to handle unplanned situations.

[Note: with “inner movements” or “initial impulse” I now mean that movement within myself which tells me to move without a thought as words or images, such as “hmm, I wonder if eating ice cream would be a good idea, yes, I think I'll have an ice cream” or having an image of ice cream come up in my mind which then evokes desire. What I'm talking about is that “inspiration” that is pure movement with no consciousness involved, such as when I remember something I wanted to ask a friend (memory is a physical function in the brain) or hear music and “feel like dancing” (want to move according to the rhythm).]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stop myself from acting upon my initial impulse by “pulling back” both physically and mentally when/as I react to the situation with fear, refusing to stand within and as the impulse and to acknowledge the impulse as myself, as my self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the source of the impulses I “receive” to move myself to act is in fact myself, the very self I am beyond my consciousness – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I doubt, reject and and suppress these impulses I actually erode my very self and push myself further from myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to see these impulses as “less than” / “not worthy” as I have refused to embrace them, here building a foundation of self-doubt, self-belittlement and self-judgement.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that who I am as these impulses is “not enough” to “succeed” in the situation at hand because I have perceived myself to “always fail” when I follow these impulses – not realizing that this fear is based on childhood experiences where I was bullied and judged by other children for my unrestrained self-expression, which I see is not a valid experience to base any fears on because children are just as messed up as their parents are and their tendency to bully is thus not “human nature” but a sign of a major malfunction in society.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take my experiences of being bullied personally as I have not seen, realized and understood that the behavior of the other children was not (only) a manifestation of who I was then but (also) a manifestation of who they were and what our world was/is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself for my experiences of being bullied as I have believed the accusations and judgements of the other children that my self-expression was “wrong”, carrying this misconception within me until the present moment where my first reaction is still to look for flaws in myself when another reacts (or to prevent reactions by “fixing my flaws” before an interaction and “playing it safe”), not realizing that the reactions of others are their reactions which they are responsible for, not me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to habitualize myself to plan things in my mind constantly “just in case” even when there is no immediate fear present.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to habitualize myself to act upon the survival mechanisms I learned as a child in the hostile environment of school where a bunch of messed up kids are put together with no proper adult support – not realizing that I am no longer in school, that life is not school and that I am no longer the same undeveloped being I was as a child but a fully grown adult who no longer just needs to survive but can actually affect how one's life is lived.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify planning and preparing for interaction within my mind by believing that this is the only way to receive acceptance, not realizing that when and as I act based on plans and follow a ready route I do not actually live within the moment by being open to all possibilities present, maintaining my ability to change my direction within a single breath if I so decide.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive social interaction to be a mine field which I need to find a safe route in to survive, not realizing that social interaction is not negative nor is it positive – it's simply the physical reality and Life with physical beings coming across each other in limited space – and that this negative value has in fact been set by me and is not actually real.

As I now see, realize and understand that the reactions of other human beings are not in fact caused by me even though I may serve as a trigger to another – I commit myself to stop myself when and as I react to another's reaction with fear. This also applies to imagined reactions where I see a “worst-case scenario” of another's negative reaction. When and as I stop myself from acting upon my initial impulse by thinking “what if [something happens]” - this thought not necessarily appearing as words or images but as a physical movement of “pulling back” and shrinking – I stop, I breathe and I realize that this worst-case scenario has not in fact happened and may not happen at all, and that even if it would happen it would be more about the other person than myself (if my starting point is clear). I realize I am afraid because of childhood experiences which are no longer here and that I am acting upon habits and survival mechanisms that served their purpose in school but are now dysfunctional. I then stabilize myself in breath, ground myself into my body as a whole and breathe the energy out – and if the energy doesn't fade with breathing, I return to investigating the point. I then return to what I was doing, re-assess the initial impulse and act upon it if necessary/possible.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to adopt the survival mechanism of planning ahead and thus appearing certain by watching my father.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust other people to accept my self-expression when it is unplanned and thus create a need to plan and prepare for interaction with others so that I would be accepted / not rejected.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that planned/preconceived expression is not really honest self-expression at all, unless there is a practical reason for the planning instead of fear being the motivator.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I do not succeed within interaction with other people I will not be accepted and will instead be rejected and bullied.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make myself helpless in front of rejection and bullying as I have taken them personally as I have not had a solid foundation of self-trust and self-worth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to appear certain through this survival mechanism of planning as an attempt to mend my insecurity which I realized to be one reason why I was so easily bullied.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I do not need to appear certain for an interaction to be successful.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that what is required for an interaction to be genuine and honest (my new definition of “successful”) is that I am who I am without any additional personalities/characters and that who I am is not always certain or at least not my definition of “certain”.

When and as I notice myself planning and/or preparing for something, I stop, I breathe and I assess within and as self-honesty whether the planning holds any practical value or not. If it does, I continue with the planning as much as is necessary and possibly stop doing other things while I plan, and when I am done I move on to other activities. If the planning does not hold any practical value but is there only to soothe my fears, I stop the planning and realize I am planning just to avoid what I fear. I then investigate the fear point that I am trying to escape, forgive myself, release the energy and move on.

I commit myself to flag moments when I fake certainty to cover up my insecurity so that I may investigate these situations further.

I commit myself to challenge myself to drop the certainty act and allow myself to be uncertain when and as I notice myself faking certainty – and I commit myself to investigate whatever these situations reveal.