Days 408-409: The healing process is to learn from mistakes

This post is a continuation to:

Day 407 - Being ill




18082014

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think about the disease in a dramatic way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use dramatic words, tones and phrasing when describing the symptoms and/or consequences of the disease, such as saying the virus will remain in my body “for the rest of my life” or exaggerating the pain or discomfort I have been in and the length and magnitude of the symptoms.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to think of having the disease as a dramatic story, where I have been the victim of unfair adversity.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by thinking and speaking of the disease in dramatic terms I assign myself a role / a position where I am “the victim” and thus justify not carrying responsibility for the disease.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive I am helpless to prevent disease and/or to direct my healing process when I am ill, not realizing that as everything in this reality is connected, nothing that occurs in my body is a coincidence.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that thinking about the disease in dramatic terms triggered a feeling of despair in me, one that continued into depression and anxiety, and that I created these feelings by separating myself from what is HERE and what can be done about it.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to expect the disease to pass in a few days as I assumed it to be a normal flu, not realizing that the long-term symptoms would have pointed to another direction had I examined them more carefully.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to resist looking at the long-term symptoms (prolonged muscle pains, fatigue, swollen face) as I have been afraid of having an uncommon illness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to avoid looking at and evaluating my symptoms because I have been afraid of what I might find: an illness as the consequence of how I have lived my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with frustration and fear when and as my expectations were not fulfilled as the disease continued longer than expected.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that other people will get tired of taking care of me and abandon me as I am no longer “useful” (entertaining, engaging, stimulating) to others but instead become “useless” (unfulfilling, boring, burdensome).

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my partner will get tired of the relationship being “on hold” while I am physically incapacitated from any form of interaction and that he will leave me as a result.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to get frustrated when the disease continued as I became afraid of being abandoned.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to heal as fast as possible to avoid abandonment.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing my friends because of prolonged sickness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “missing out on life” while I am sick, with this referring mainly to social events I have been unable to attend while sick, not realizing that I am not missing out on life in fact, as LIFE is here even when I am am sick – sickness is life, too – but that I am “missing out” on “fun”: experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness are dependent on specific social conditions and cannot be experienced while sick and alone.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to confuse the experiences of joy, excitement, belonging and happiness with stability, believing and perceiving that the positive emotional experiences can provide a stable focal point to my life, not realizing that the nature of experiences is inherently unstable and fickle, as no emotion/feeling can be made to last forever or to remain the same; Thus, I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that reliable stability can only be found outside energetic and emotional experiences.

- I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to stress about “missing out” on positive experiences (and fear facing negative experiences) as I have believed them to be “the fuel” I would need to live on.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to physical disability, as I have been afraid that I would be somehow disabled for the rest of my life.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making mistakes that can't be amended, not realizing that in the end there are very few mistakes the consequences of which couldn't be directed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making a mistake that will permanently disable my physical body in some way, not realizing that this fear is a sign of my mistrust towards myself – of the fact that I know I am not living as self-honestly as I could and that it can bite me in the ass some day.

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But hang on. What if this is the greatest fallacy of all?

One of my clearest personality traits (or issues) is perfectionism: trying to do things as well and flawlessly as possible, because I see no point in aiming any lower. The whole low self-esteem thing with “I'm not good enough” popping up everywhere is tied to this survival mechanism, where I kind of try to compensate for myself with my actions – myself, which I perceive to be very small, insignificant and insufficient. Most of the people closest to me, and even those that are not that close, have picked up on this, although not many discuss it directly.

Because the people in my life have helped me become aware of this personality trait learned somewhere way early in my childhood, I have become more careful about walking this process. I fear that I am looking for “fault” in myself where there is none, because there IS an actual risk for me misrepresenting myself to myself, and often people respond to my attempts to develop myself by dismissing my attempts to carrry self-responsibility with “you don't have to be perfect”. I know this is probably in most cases a defense mechanism, but I'm still doubtful. What if I am doing myself harm by trying to be “perfect”?

But I am not aiming to be perfect. I am engaging in a process to become the best possible version of myself: considering the circumstances I have been born and raised in and the possibilities I have now as the outcome; the time I have left; the skills I have and the skills I am still able and willing to learn; the support I have available in my environment. I by no means expect myself to ever be “ready” or “done” with this process, I do not expect myself to learn everything there is, I do not expect myself succeed flawlessly in any of my attempts. What I do expect of myself, however, is patience, perseverance, consistency, self-management (I prefer this to “self-discipline”) and absolute self-honesty – at least eventually, as the cycles of self-deceit sometimes can't be unraveled right away. Can this be called perfectionism? I'd rather call it integrity or self-respect. Why would I disgrace myself by not showing myself respect?

Also, I do not see the process as linear, where I'd have a single outcome to reach for. I do not see myself lying on my deathbed and thinking “this is who I became!”, lol, and waiting for judgement. What I refer to with the “best possible version” of myself may be different in different points of time and space – it is simply the potential that I would be able to live out, and this can and will vary as I change and my environment changes.

So, when writing the last self-forgiveness statement above, I wrote the words “I'm not living as self-honestly as I could” and I saw self-judgement.

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27082014

I commit myself to show myself that most mistakes can be amended by redirecting oneself and managing the consequences of a mistake, just like an illness heals once the cause is addressed and dealt with and the symptoms alleviated.

Thus, I commit myself to live out the commitment above by following this self-corrective statement:

When and as I consider myself having made a mistake - by for example thinking about having made a mistake, blaming myself for having made a mistake or feeling bad for making a mistake – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that a mistake is also a chance to learn and develop, and that a mistake is not a negative (nor a positive) thing. I take care to not believe my self-judgement, I look at the cause of my mistake and I forgive myself for it. I look at the consequences of my mistake and I ask what could be done to reduce their impact. I take action to make amends for the consequences of my mistake and to redirect myself in a way that will prevent the same mistake from happening again. I remind myself that a learning process is a series of mistakes and that mistakes are inevitable if one wants to learn.



The next time I get ill, I commit myself to focus primarily on resting and self-care to support myself with my immediate circumstances and secondarily on piecing together a picture of what events and actions led to the disease in order to support me in my long-term process.

The next time I get ill, I commit myself to face the illness as LIFE, not as something that separates me from life.

Days 261-262: Pushing myself to be social

20-22062013

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Days 200-201: Fear of change / fear of loss

09-10042013

I faced a moment where I feared that me taking a stance - knowing who I am, deciding how to live and sticking to this decision - would repel another person. I was living out correction in my behavior and noticed “signs” from another that seemed to indicate retreat, and I got this empty feeling, as if I had “lost my chance” or “missed out on” something, and I wavered in my decision.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the changes in my environment (as caused by the changes within me) with fear as I feared losing something that used to be “in my reach” but apparently wasn't there anymore.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe my instant interpretation of reality and validate it by participating in the following reaction, not realizing that my instant interpretation of my surroundings is just guesswork as I have not yet stopped to fully consider and investigate what actually happened.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to interpret happenings in my environment to be “signs” that are directly linked to my experience, not realizing that the happenings of my environment are not necessarily caused by me – that the happenings of my environment and my inner movements are two different things.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing another person because of the decisions I've made to stick to certain principles.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the inevitable change of my environment that follows the change that happens in me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to consider abandoning my decisions or making compromises so that I would not lose another person.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “losing” another, not realizing that people are never truly lost from each other as the flesh stays here unfaltering even though the mind may draw barriers in between us.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear “losing” another because of what the other represents to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel empty when perceiving another to be “gone”, not realizing that I have been reacting to the loss of those attributes which I perceive myself to lack and the other one to have.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to seek relationships in which the other “fulfills me” by living as the attributes I lack so that I wouldn't have to develop these traits in myself – not realizing that this is to live as mutually accepted self-abuse and abuse as oneself is accepted and allowed to be less than who one actually is and also to elevate oneself at the expense of another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear losing things I find valuable because I perceive the decisions I have made to be “radical”, “unorthodox”, “unacceptable” - fearing that others will judge me, think less of me and distance themselves from me – not realizing that if others actually choose to do so it is the logical outflow of my actions and an indicator of who these people are and thus should not be taken personally.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to take it personally when (I perceive) others (to) disagree with who I am and how I decide to live, not realizing that as I for example make a public choice to live according to the principle of self-honesty people will react to it in different ways - those who are “on the same level” with the principle will approach and those who are not will retreat – and that this is simply the consequence of speaking up and making a statement that is absolutely certain and not a compromise so that there is no “gray area” of indecisiveness where people could linger.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if another retreats when and as I live as the principle of self-honesty, it is better for the both of us to be apart as we are not willing to co-exist according to the same principles (at least not yet).

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to “run after” another as he/she retreats, holding onto my affection for a familiar/valuable component of my life, not realizing that affection here is just my relationship of dependency towards another.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to “run after” another by making compromises and retreating from my decisions, living as complete and utter self-sabotage and self-compromise where I give up on growth for the sake of comfort.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that moment of emptiness where I have lived out a correction and something old vanishes and where I do not have a pattern to follow.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to the lack of something familiar/valuable when and as I have lived out a correction, participating in the fear reaction and thus creating a desire to have the familiar/valuable thing back so that I wouldn't have to face the emptiness that is in fact – me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the empty state in which I have no plans and no prepared patterns or formats to act upon, just movement and creation, as I have not trusted myself to be able to live through such moments and have accepted and allowed myself to fall back into consciousness and thought.

I commit myself to face my fear of change as my life changes with the choices, decisions and commitments I make, and I commit myself to investigate this fear thoroughly as I see, realize and understand that this fear will only slow down my process as I move through constant resistance.

I commit myself to realize that every time I fail to live by a decision / commitment I've made by choosing to act against my decision / commitment I do harm onto myself as this slows down my process and may even freeze it completely.

When and as I doubt a decision / commitment / correction I have made, wanting to abandon my stance – I stop, I breathe and I realize that the commitment is null until / unless I consistently live according to it. I remind myself that the consequences of falling from a commitment are brought upon myself completely – if I now accept and allow myself to fall I will pay the price. I breathe and I face the emptiness of the moment where it appears as if “something is missing” and I realize that I'm reacting to the absence of the old habit / pattern. I realize that I can now choose how to “fill” this emptiness – how to utilize it – how to move within it. I breathe, I consider the practical reality and I move based on my consideration.

When and as I react with fear to “losing” another person, with the image of another turning away from me and walking away – I stop, I breathe and I realize that this moment is where a tie of dependency is broken and that I react because I fear standing on my own. I ground myself to my physical existence with breathing and remind myself that there is nothing more certain than breath: as I stand here breathing I am proving myself I am able to stand on my own. I investigate the relationship at hand if necessary, and I then forgive myself and embrace the emptiness which is in fact myself.