Day 390: Submitting to aggression

26022014

http://www.udes.com

I've come across yet another interesting pattern of self-judgement. I faced a moment at work where I purposefully left a piece of mess for the morning shift to clean up, of which I sent them a message in advance to warn them about it. I was a bit worried about leaving it there, but because I had cleaned the rest of the bar well and even better than usual, I shoved the incidence out of my mind and forgot about it.

Today I received a message from the manager giving me feedback about it, telling me that a mess like that should be cleaned by the evening shift and giving me directions for the cleaning equipment required for it. The message was clear and direct – not hostile or aggressive in any way – yet I reacted to it quite strongly. I instantly started telling myself that I had “fucked up” and “made a mistake”. I went through the situation and saw how I could have done things in a different way, possibly not gaining any different results, but at least trying my best. Basically, I tried to make myself feel better about myself by pointing out all the things I did and have done well, while simultaneously putting myself down by thinking that with this single task “I didn't do my best” because I reasoned out that I don't have to, that I can cut myself some slack. So it was as if I was both whipping and caressing myself at the same time, lol.

I discussed this a bit with the manager now, and because his response was that of common sense, I realized that I was acting very submissive, apologizing and child-like. (Thank you, world, for managers that aren't abusive assholes!) It was like I had lost all self-respect and dignity – like an utterly humbled and broken child. This is a highly interesting facet of myself to see, because my self-image, or self-ideal, is one of an “independent, willful woman”. I would like to be strong and see myself as strong, when in fact I am not, at least in some ways. I have weak spots.

I am not sure where I have learned this pattern of only searching for my value in other people's responses. This isn't anything I would have been actively taught at home, because my family was quite laid back. My best guess is that when entering primary school I got completely sucked into its disciplinary system. I knew none of the kids from before and to me they all appeared to already know each other from preschool; my teachers were idols to me and I yearned for their approval, especially after facing what it's like to not be in their favour. So in order to gain standing in the eyes of my peers and authorities I learned to play the “game of schooling”: doing what I was told to get the best rewards.

It is fascinating to see just how broken I am after a confrontation like this. There was nothing aggressive or purposefully hurtful about it, and yet I crumbled. It's very close to the “good student dilemma” I wrote about recently, where I want to be the “good employee” and thus live within constant strain, as if I was constantly stretching myself from opposite ends while looking around for signs of approval. The anticipation of “did I do something wrong?” met with the feedback today makes for misinterpretations and flipping out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to misinterpret my employer's message to be blaming and angry by creating an image in my mind the night before about him finding the mess and getting angry at me for not cleaning it up, him blaming me for not doing something that's not his responsibility but mine, thus seeing this image in my mind when I read the message and fitting the message with the image – not realizing that my perception of the message was already fucked because of the image I had crafted out of fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is valid for another person to feel angry when they need to do something “unfair” (clean up a mess that's not theirs), thus taking the blame for not doing it for them, not realizing that cleaning up the mess in question wouldn't have been “fair” for me either because I didn't cause it – and that essentially there is nothing that is “fair” or “unfair” in this world as we are all a part of the same organism that has created and will create itself and the circumstances it's within: we're all a part of a species that allows its members to get drunk enough to puke all over bathroom floors, so somebody's got to clean that shit up.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to submit when somebody directs their anger at me – real or imagined! - thus accepting whatever accusations and demands if they seem in any way plausible to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to anger/aggression by submitting.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear anger and aggression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see, realize and understand that anger and aggression are simply individuals' reactions to what there is and not valid feedback on myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that anger and aggression are valid because I saw my father using them when I was a child.

When and as I see myself reacting to anger and/or aggression, I stop, I breathe and I search myself for any feelings of smallness, inadequacy and shame. I look at my thoughts and pinpoint what exactly I am thinking. I remind myself that I am not in school anymore, that no one can bully me anymore, that no one no longer has the power to decide my worth for me based on arbitrary demands. I check myself to see whether I am in fact imagining the anger/aggression, as this is what I am prone to do, or whether the aggression is actually there. I remind myself that anger/aggression are reactions to how a person experiences the reality and not necessarily valid statements of the reality itself, and that a person's emotional reaction is not an indicator of who I am but of the person him/herself. I breathe and I follow through the situation by focusing on my self-assessment.

I commit myself to stop being a floormat. (lol)

I commit myself to stop validating aggressive reactions by counter-reacting to them.

I commit myself to investigate how and why I create mental images where I am attacked, thus creating a fearful stance towards the world.

I commit myself to reconsider before I apologize.

Day 357: Who should I be?

22112013

A scenario I sometimes conjure in my mind as an insecure vegetarian.

Because my chronic shoulder pain is one of the major points why my moment-to-moment living is currently “unpleasant” in such a way that makes me want to “unwind” through different means of relaxation (alcohol, socializing, video games, TV, sleeping), I am now focusing on the shoulder point as representing survival systems. Because this pain has arisen during these past 4 months, where I have also had a lot of changes and faced new challenges, the question I'm asking myself is: What survival systems have been activated within myself in my new surroundings and positions?

Whenever a person interacts with the world, the mind activates to ask: what should I do to make the best of this (to survive)? The human mind then searches for cues and clues for a) what one's surroundings are b) who one is in relation to one's surroundings. If there are other people involved, the mind maps out who the others are and who oneself is in relation to them. This process of mapping out one's reality is often twisted so that one's assessments don't have anything to do with what is actually here and what actually happened, but instead focus on what one believes and perceives or imagines to be true.

For example, one might talk with another person and interpret their tone of voice to mean that the other has ill intentions even though his/her words do not directly imply so. This is when one's perception of the reality is believed instead of interacting with the actual reality to find out what actually happened: whether the other person actually had ill intentions or not.

This tendency to assume that one “knows” what's going on within other people affects our actions greatly. The perspective I am now focusing on are the assumptions I have of other people's expectations for me: “who do others want me to be?” What would be the best course of action for me so that this situation with other people would have a positive outcome for me? Living through this question places a heavy burden on my shoulders (literally!) as whenever I interact with other people my actions are determined by what I believe I should be. This strain and the conflict/friction that occurs when I question this pattern and try to live otherwise is, I'm guessing, the reason I have been in intense physical pain for a while now with no help from external methods (exercise, stretching, massage).

So, I have recently been asking myself the question “who do I believe and perceive I should be (here)” or “who am I trying to be”. After observing myself in different situations I have so far found one common nominator: trying to be “good” / liked. I immediately associated this to my childhood where I have learned to try to be pleasing in school to be liked and to get good grades. The measure for “success” or “appearing likable” varies according to circumstances.

For example, today I had a small singing gig with some people from my choir on a very short notice. It was my first gig with this choir, and I took it very seriously as a “representation task”, knowing that we would be paid plenty of money for it, that our future gig invitations rely on how well we perform and that there would be many “important academic people” in the audience. I was very stiff and serious, wanting to appear professional even though we had had very little practice and I was unsure of the songs, and I noticed that I was projecting my self-demands on the other singers. I saw myself judging their laid-back attitudes, their “lack of ambition”, and even the ways they sat hunched and limp. I realized that I was afraid of “sinking with the boat”: that the audience would judge me along with the group no matter how hard I tried individually. I realized that imposing my self-standards on others is to distract my focus from myself – to accommodate my world to my demands instead of living within and as the world – and that I was causing my shoulder pain to get worse with the stiff way I was sitting.

Now, what is relevant here is who I believe and perceive “the audience” to be. After 20 years of performing in front of differing audiences I have come to define “the audience” as this faceless entity with the power to either appreciate what I perform (acceptance) or to resent it (rejection). I have defined “the audience” to have the power to define me, or more specifically, my self-worth. I have not realized to question the “power” of the audience and how I have handed it over.

Another point I'm seeing here is the fact that for me performing is a very selfish thing, even though I have done it in a group for 15 years. What matters is ME, my ego, my success, how I look, how I appear, it's always been underneath all the fancy words about teamwork. Today during that choir gig my anxiety arose from how it would make ME look bad if the gig didn't go well. I wanted the others to stop being careless because it would made me look bad, not because their carelessness has consequences on themselves and the choir as a whole. In other words, I was not focusing on the best of All but on my self-interest, which is why I was working "alone" instead of working as a group.

I'll continue from here with self-forgiveness.

Days 355-356: Escaping physical strain

20-21112013

In regards to what I wrote about alcohol/socializing being a way to relax for me, I've been paying attention to how and why I make my moment-to-moment living uncomfortable / unenjoyable so that I need the release from “leisure” to balance myself from the exhaustion I have created. So far I have come across some points.

• Physical strain: either my backpack is too heavy or the wrong size for me, or my posture is not OK for sustainably carrying a heavy backpack while walking long distances. Also, my physical reading positions are rarely such where I would not end up in pain: I always eventually jam up my back and/or shoulders. As I write my shoulder muscles are currently in a very painful state.
• Partly because of the physical discomfort I tend to escape my breath-to-breath living into my mind. I usually think about a) past events, b) future events or c) imaginary events – stuff that doesn't exist anymore / yet / at all – and I do this over and over again without achieving any new insights with any of the recurring thoughts.
• A point I noticed while walking long distances was impatience. When there is some reason for me to feel impatient to “be there already” (e.g. be home already because I am hungry and I have food waiting for me) I escape my moment-to-moment living into the mind as described above, as if to distract myself from the discomfort that is here (such as hunger) to get me “faster” to my goal/destination. Even though this method makes it seem as if “time goes faster” because I momentarily become unaware of myself and the discomfort my physical body is experiencing, I actually sabotage myself because when and as I distract my attention from my body's actual needs I lock myself into a state of tension. For example, when I am walking outside and it is cold, if I distract myself to not be aware of the coldness and instead ”float around” in a mind bubble, my body will still experience the coldness and be in a state of tension as I am not giving my body any attention. Instead I could be aware of the experience of coldness, keep myself in deep and slow breathing and relax my body with each breath, through this assisting and supporting my body to survive the cold. I have noticed through experimenting that when I relax myself within an uncomfortable experience, it actually becomes less uncomfortable (e.g. cold feels less cold) – I'm guessing it has something to do with how blood flows in muscles (tense vs. relaxed).

Alright. I will now walk these points and see what comes of it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to forget to breathe so that I have not noticed the physical pain in my body caused by a bad posture before the pain gets bad enough.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to ignore my body telling me that the posture I am in is damaging to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I “need to” study at the expense of my physical body because there are “no better options”, not realizing that I am causing myself extensive damage and making my studying more difficult in the long run, and that there is sure to be some option that I just haven't figured out yet.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give up on trying to find a physically painless way to study and instead settle for positions that are not good for my health.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that pushing myself to study through pain is self-sabotage, as the pain will eventually render me unable to study.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my discomfort into the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to my experience being uncomfortable with fear and thus create a desire to no longer be there, thus fulfilling this desire by escaping my experience into a mind illusion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to discomfort with the fear of not being able to handle it, believing and perceiving that physical discomfort is something “overwhelming”, not realizing that physical discomfort can in fact be dealt with simply by breathing, locating the problem and taking necessary actions to solve the problem.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to no realize that when in discomfort, the simple act of breathing and bringing my awareness to the pain is to gift myself with the attention that I actually require, and that escaping the discomfort by not breathing and distracting myself with thoughts/images is to neglect myself and ignore the needs of my physical body.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape my uncomfortable experience of the physical reality into the mind as thoughts and imaginations of the past and future, thus losing myself into what is not actually HERE and neglecting that which is actually HERE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a thought/image is “more enjoyable” than my experience of the actual reality and that this enjoyability is a valid reason to escape the reality, not realizing that the enjoyment in the mind is temporary and fades and that every moment spent away from HERE brings consequences: if I shut my eyes while driving a car, every moment spent driving with my eyes closed might take me off the road.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the enjoyment within/of the mind / the conceptual reality always fades, whereas enjoyment within/of this physical reality is sustainable.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become impatient with the cause of my physical discomfort (cold, rain, hunger, tiredness) and to escape the discomfort by thinking of the moment when I will get rid of it (by getting home, getting to a shelter, getting food, getting to rest etc.), and thus “mend” my impatience by imagining I'm “there already” or by telling myself I'm “almost there”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my physical needs need to be “soothed” with imagination or otherwise they will overpower me, not realizing that if I am not actually dying my physical needs cannot in fact overpower me by themselves, and that my experiences and memories of a physical need becoming “overwhelming” are such where I have made it “overwhelming” through the mind with enhancing thoughts such as “I am so hungry/cold”, “I am in so much pain”, “this sucks”, “I hate this”, “I'm so far away from home”, “why can't I be there already”, “this feels awful” et cetera, where I have eventually been overpowered by my own helplessness and not the problem itself.

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I commit myself to keep myself in breath before, during and after I study (read text from a book / computer screen OR write on a notepad / computer) to keep my awareness in my physical body and to thus ensure that no painful point – message from my body, the living organism – goes unnoticed.

• Before I study, I commit myself to find myself a comfortable position to study in.
• During studying, I commit myself to take note of any pain I might feel and to adjust my posture/position accordingly, making sure that I get up and move around every 15 minutes.
• After studying, I commit myself to pay attention to the remaining effects of the physical act of studying in my body.

I commit myself to show myself that I am capable of surviving non-lethal physical discomfort, such as hunger, tiredness and changes in temperature, by returning myself to breath whenever I escape the physical reality into my mind and by keeping myself stable and relaxed in breath until the problem can be solved.

When and as I create dramatic thoughts about my state of discomfort – such as “I am so hungry/tired/cold” - I stop, I breathe and I realize that with these thoughts I give in to helplessness, believing and perceiving that I am powerless to direct the situation to the best possible outcome. I realize that the reality is not in fact dramatic as everything moves according to simple causality (if I do not eat, I will eventually get hungry) and that within a reality of causality there is always also some kind of a course of action available that will work as a solution to undesired circumstances (when I go home, I will eat food). I stabilize myself in breath, search for an actual solution to the problem, and I keep myself stable until the problem is resolved.

I commit myself to explore how to find comfort in discomfort through breathing, relaxing and taking care of my basic physical needs.

Alright, I'll continue with more related points tomorrow.

Day 234: "Having a romantic interest" as an addiction

15052013

[Today I opened up a point in private writings, here's some excerpt and SF on it.]

[Here I'm speaking mostly from the perspective of childhood experiences.]

Rejection. My romantic interests have rejected me ever since the first one. There have been few mutual ones, and some that I haven't responded to. I have built up this hope and this positive experience of another, positive view of another, expectations of the other being the most wonderful person ever, and when I have been denied access to this I have blamed myself for it – I have not been good enough. And it has been like all of my foundation has been crumbled away: I have laid out myself on the image of another person, a person I have not even known, thinking of this image as the “earth beneath my feet” because the energy charge of this has been so strong that it has helped me survive my daily adversities of being bullied, isolated and self-abused. So “having a romantic interest” has been an addiction to me, a drug to keep me going, something with which to replace self-support. Romantic interests and the related fantasies have been my “rosy glasses”, my distraction, my escape from the actual issues haunting me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get addicted to the energy I have received from having a romantic interest, as I have used this energy to fuel me in my daily living which was consuming to me because of all the adversity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to choose one person among a selection of suitable people (usually being physically available within my daily living and being approximately in my age group has been enough) according to the energetic reaction I have had towards this person on first encounter (“first impression”) as related to others available, choosing the one towards which my reaction was most overwhelming and most positive – then placing this person in a “special position” where I would start building fantasies and scenarios around this person according to the model my world had presented me (through movies, fairytales, books, media, celebrities), building up expectations, hopes and desires that these scenarios would come true so that I could release the anticipation and experience all the energy I had been promised, thus also creating fear that this person would no longer “be available” and that he would be “stolen” from me by someone “better” than me, fearing that all the scenarios and hopes and desires and plans I had invested in would collapse, because I would then collapse as the hole within me that I ignored with all this is still there, waiting to be noticed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build fantasies and scenarios of “security” and “safety” around this one selected person because I did not feel safe or secure within my world and within myself and instead of looking at myself for the cause and remedy searched for a “quick fix” from outside of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to repeat this scenario time and time again without realizing that the problem is within me, that it is not about “having the wrong person” or me being “not good enough” - it is this desire to have a romantic interest that is causing me trouble because I have been clearly unable to live without one as I have always latched myself onto another after the last attempt has “failed”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, as I have not felt secure, safe or stable within my living, to search for security, safety and stability from other people instead of seeing, realizing and understanding that my “lack” is due to my immaturity as a human being which is the result of me growing up in a world that is immature.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek for the elements that I lack due to an imbalanced childhood from others, not realizing that it is not another's responsibility to give me what I lack so that I could live as a seemingly complete, yet actually incomplete being for the rest of my days.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it is my responsibility to grow back my “missing limbs”, because when given by others it is but a “wooden leg” the giving of which consumes the other, and that me growing out of my own immaturity is the only known option that considers the best of all, not just my self-interest.

This leaves me with the question: why do I feel insecure, unstable and unsafe? Knowing the basics of developmental psychology, I'd say something in my process of growing up has been disturbed as a child – but when and how? This may have something to do with my relationship to my father. During my childhood he was “never there” because he was always working, and when he was actually present it was be uncertain whether he would be stressed and tired or really happy and cheerful – so I could never really trust him to “always be there for me” because sometimes he was obviously too tired to put up with my child-existence, and even though he tried to cover this up I of course noticed. So maybe I'm looking for that stability, that reliability that was never there from other men, trying to find the stability that I was supposed to learn from my father/parents but never did. Children learn by mimicking: I was never shown stability, safety, certainty, security in terms of a being's “inner balance”. Thus I did not learn this as a child, when all I had to mimic was unreliable emotional expression and self-abuse.

So, right. Whatever it has been, I have picked this all up as a child when I have actually been helpless about my life. What I didn't pick up when it would have been easy, I'm going to have to practice now when it's difficult, and that can only happen through consistent practicing: stopping the pattern, questioning it, not living according to it, directing myself otherwise. Moment after moment after moment. Walking myself out of this mess is not going to be easy.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be consistent about stopping the related mind-patterns [which I opened up in private writings] as I have not realized that walking myself out of a dependency / addiction is the most difficult thing I will ever do because I resist it with all of my mind, and that it thus requires all of my effort to sort it out.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not stop these patterns every time they occur and instead allow them to run for a while and only notice and stop them until they accumulate enough fear/desire within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be lazy about my writings as I have not been specific enough to actually assist and support me to overcome these mind-patterns.

I commit myself to map out these mind-patterns in full detail so that I can flag them and actually notice and immediately stop them when and as they occur.

I commit myself to no longer follow these mind patterns because I see, realize and understand that they will only lead to fear and/or desire and that I will end up looping in-between these polarities – neither one of which is based on reality.

I commit myself to write about the self-suppression related to this point. [Not mentioned here.]