Day 373: Claiming personal space - distracted by the social sphere

02012014

For some time now I have had my partner living with me. He lives on the other side of the globe and is now visiting me for some weeks / a couple of months. He has been living in my apartment for about 3 weeks, which has been a major challenge for me because I have lived alone for the past 4-5 years.

One challenge I have faced is finding, arranging and claiming personal space when it's needed. Because my apartment only really has one room with no doors to separate private spaces, it takes some effort to de-attach myself from the presence of the other, as I first need to identify the need for personal space, then decide to arrange it, then communicate it, and then make sure that I utilize that space effectively.

This is one of the reasons I have had trouble writing lately. I find it difficult to focus on writing in the presence of another or rather find some social activities more relevant. My partner agrees that writing is important and he is willing to give me all the space I need for doing it, but I have still found it difficult. I much rather just escape the discomfort of arranging myself a moment for writing into social activities as they are so easy and comfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to escape the discomfort I find in writing into social activities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to make writing uncomfortable for myself as I have created a threshold from the excuse “I don't know what to write about”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that “I don't now what to write about”, not realizing that it is an excuse to not write, and that I am in fact able to figure out what to write a blog post about once I sit down, bring myself to breath and start mapping out my recent experiences.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear / anticipate the moment when I do not have a clear view on what today's blog post will be about, not realizing that the view will clarify eventually as I simply break my experience down and give myself enough time to piece it together.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to be distracted by the social possibilities living with another person brings into my life, thus forgetting about and ignoring my responsibilities.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify being distracted by the social possibilities with the fact that my partner will only be here for a few weeks, not realizing that even though this is true and I should utilize my time with him as effectively as possible, by interacting with him from the starting point of escapism I build the relationship into a place of escapism / illusion instead of building it into a platform of actual support, which will have long-lasting consequences and might affect the relationship further in the future.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the choices I make when living with my partner affect the way the relationship is constructed, and that if I give myself leeway by for example escaping my responsibilities or disregarding communication, it will have an effect on what the relationship becomes and what kind of issues/conflict/disturbance we will eventually come across.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by claiming myself personal space to carry out my responsibilities and tasks I build the relationship to be founded on self-responsibility, self-reliance, commitment, direct communication, self-honesty and mutual support and assistance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by claiming myself personal space I do not only support myself but I also support the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear claiming personal space because it requires me to ask for practical things (silence, comfortable seat, good lighting, etc.) for myself so that the other will not be able to use them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear asking for these practicalities as I have feared that I might be asking “too much” from the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that if I ask “too much” of the other, he will think less of me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear my partner thinking less of me because I perceive and believe that with him there's “more to lose” than with others as the “stakes are higher”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give special value to my partner's opinion of me as I have believed and perceived that a positive opinion keeps the relationship together whereas a negative opinion will make him lose interest / motivation.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a person's opinion of another – how one experiences the other momentarily and in long-term / who one believes and perceives the other to be – is the fundamental reason for why relationships are created and held onto, not realizing that to build a partnership on feelings, images and concepts alone is unreliable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that alongside feelings and concepts relationships can also be built on principles, common goals and rational reasoning, which will provide a more solid foundation for a relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust the principles our relationship is founded upon and (out of habit) be constantly afraid of “losing my standing” in the eyes of my partner, as this is what has usually been the reason for my relationships ending.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold the practice of building relationships on unreliable grounds by choosing my partners according to momentary experiences and ending the relationships when my partners have no longer triggered the same experience in me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my current relationship will end up the same way my previous relationships have ended up, not realizing that I have the tools to prevent such an outcome.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by trying to guess how this relationship “ends up” I am thinking in stories, simplifying lived life into images and living according to this guesswork, not realizing that future is created HERE and cannot be fully foreseen.

I digress!

I commit myself to arrange myself the time and space to write every day, taking into consideration the circumstances I do this in.

I commit myself to practice trust and self-trust by addressing topics that feel difficult with my partner.

I commit myself, when and as I need it, to ask for support from my partner e.g. in writing.

Day 325: Attraction, part 3

 30092013

This post is a continuation to:

Day 323: Attraction, part 1

Day 324: Attraction, part 2

“Lately I've been thinking a lot about attraction. When one is attracted to someone, in essence it is a kind of a pull – being drawn towards something – but these phrases suggest that it is someone else pulling, that a force outside of me is drawing me towards someone, when in fact I create the pull as I have created who I am at the moment.”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that when I feel attraction I am not responsible for that feeling because I have been taught by this world that attraction, romance and love are some kind of a magical mystery force that just comes from somewhere outside/above of us.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I feel attraction towards another person because of that person, naming it “destiny”, “love” or “fate”, thinking we are “meant to be” or “made for each other” or “soulmates”, completely passing the responsibility on the other for a feeling that I HAVE inside of me, believing that he/she is “making me feel this way” – not realizing that I am the cause of every feeling and emotion I experience as nobody else can access my body nor my mind, and that I am thus responsible for the feeling of attraction within me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I see another person and I feel attraction, the other person is working as a trigger to “who I am” (the patterns of thought, belief and behavior I am currently living as) - “who I am” is mirrored back to me within the interaction with the other - which is when I project the following experience of “who I am” onto another and feel drawn towards the other because of the experience of “who I am” - not because of who the other one is.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I am attracted to another because of who the other is, not realizing that even though this is partially so, the primary reason for my attraction is who I am or who I “get to be” when with the other, as accepted and allowed by who the other one is.*

* For example, the other may be very kind I and I think I like the other because he/she is kind, when in fact when I am with that person I do not have to face my fear of aggressive people and I feel safe – I am within my comfort zone – I do not have to step outside of my comfort zone to face new challenges and grow as a person. Or: the other may be very active and energetic and I enjoy being with him/her because I can just follow his/her lead and do not have to motivate myself to be active. BUT these examples only show how attraction can be abused, when it can in fact also be used for growth.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to waste opportunities for growth when attracted to another being by accepting and allowing my feeling of attraction to “take the wheel” - believing and perceiving the other to be the cause of my experience and attraction to be something magical outside of me, thus only abusing the attraction as described above – not stopping to ask myself where attraction comes from, who I become with the other and what it is I could learn from the other.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to abdicate my responsibility for my experience of attraction by blaming it (very lovingly) on my target of attraction or on the “universe” ( = that great big something “above” me that can always take the blame when I don't want to).

“The issue that somewhat remains is the fact that I suddenly find myself drawn to many people at once – not that it wouldn't have happened before, but before I have simply told myself “no” and refused to explore the situation further. It's either been a “no, I'm already in a relationship” or a “no, I've already got a main romantic interest”. So basically I have already made up my mind about who I will be intimate with, as if there was a spot I'm reserving – and I'm not talking about only sex, but about all levels of physical AND mental intimacy.”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define intimate interaction to be such that can only happen in an exclusive monogamous relationship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to justify limiting intimate self-expression into an exclusive monogamous relationship by thinking it is “personal”, “private”, “holy” and/or “special”, not realizing that all these concepts work as an excuse to keep a level of myself hidden form myself.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a part of me is “personal”/”private” - something I am allowed to keep to myself because it is only mine – not realizing that there is absolutely nothing that is “only mine” as everything that I am and live as is a result of this reality AND affects all of this reality, which makes everything that I am “everybody's business”, in a sense, because nothing of me is fully separate from the rest of this reality and existence.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that a part of me is “holy” and thus needs to be hidden from the world and/or shared exclusively with “special” individuals only, such as a spouse, a spiritual guide, a therapeutist or a god – not realizing that even though this “safe zone” of exposing myself may be a necessary step for me to open up at all, creating excuses to stay within that “safe zone” - such as by claiming it to be “holy” - is an act of fear and self-dishonesty, because what I realize of myself within that “safe zone” is not fully integrated into my living regardless of circumstances.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit myself from exploring human interaction with the thought “I already have someone else”, not realizing that I am giving myself an excuse to not face my fear of undefined relationships and unforeseeable interaction and rather stick to my “safe zone” where I know what to expect from each person I interact with as I have already decided what is “allowed” and what is “not allowed”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I am only allowed to express my attraction towards one person at once, as this is what I have been taught within the culture I was born in, not realizing that this trait of this specific culture (monogamy) has not been inherently here within human beings since the dawn of time but is a concept and a tradition that has been created to serve a utilitarian purpose within a certain context.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not question my cultural context as I have believed that the authorities in my life (family, school, media) have taught me absolute, universal truths.

“The point is that what my relations are with the individual people I come across of the world's population of 7 billion are what I make of them – they are at best a creation by two – and that if I do one thing with someone it does not exclude me from doing another thing with somebody else.”

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit my self-expression into one “special” relationship because I have feared that the one I am in a relationship with might get hurt, insulted, angry, sad and/or depressed as a result.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create this definition of relationships (one has to be “faithful” so that the other one doesn't feel bad) based on an experience within an early relationship of mine where I discussed this topic with my partner and my partner took it personally.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself, when and as I saw my partner getting emotionally hurt, to react with fear of losing my partner and decide that I will be “faithful” to make sure that my partner doesn't leave me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I am not responsible for the emotions and feelings of another when I do not purposefully provoke them, and that therefore my partner's reaction to our discussion was not my fault.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to “take the blame” for the fact that my partner reacted when I expressed that I would like to share myself intimately with other people as well – not that his reaction would have been surprising at all and that I would have had any idea how to handle it.

Days 271-273: One big family

09-11072013

A new perspective on family was presented to me yesterday. In the western world our idea of a family is very narrow, consisting only of the “core family” which is usually the parents and their children. This view on family causes our circle of empathy to become limited, meaning that we only feel empathy towards those we perceive to be closest to us, and most people beyond those borders are met and interacted with from a distance. I have had conversations with friends where they have told me that as long as they and their families are safe and well, the rest of the world can die around them. “Why would I care?”, I'm told.

Right now I am visiting a culture in which the concept of family is more expansive. People call each others brothers and sisters and aunties and mamas and papas even if they weren't actually related by blood, because the concept of family covers all the people you interact with in your life, the people you live with, work with, spend time with, all the people you come across. Sometimes this leads to confusion about who is actually a brother to someone and whatnot, but mostly it just doesn't matter. Why would it be any different if we were born from the same mother? What difference would it make in the life we live right now, right here? Because my friend has been living here for months now she knows many people, and when she has introduced me to people I have immediately been accepted as a part of family. I am her “sister” and she is everyone's “family” so I am “family” as well.

Yesterday my friend told me how she had realized what difference this change in view actually makes in the actions of people, and I realized I have never really considered people outside my family as family. There is a lot of talk for example within christianity about us all being each others “brothers” and “sisters” - and I realized that I have never lived in such a way, I have never really seen other people without that boundary: “you are alien to me”, “keep your distance”. I tried this approach with another friend I came across that day, asking myself “what if he was my brother?”, and I noticed a difference in the level of empathy and care towards that person. It was a strange experience, like a veil being lifted, especially because I have been welcomed like a family member here thinking I have given the same back to others, but now it appears that actually I haven't.

I realize that the reason I raise these walls with others is fear. I have defined family as “the place where I am safe”, which is a definition that excludes the rest of humanity, which is a shitload of people. I realize that my actual family is the entire human race, because we have all originated from the same process of evolution. We're all branches of the same tree. It does not matter which branch I happen to be born in, because the trunk is the same for everyone. In order to live as equal to everyone else I need to see them as my family, as one with me, not as “the others”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to out of fear keep people at a distance and only allow a selected few get close to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define these selected few to be “family”, consisting of the people I grew up with and thus developed a strong bond of trust with and the people I have developed bonds of trust with later on through friendship.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to require people to show me their “trustworthiness” before I let them close to me, not realizing that I am here pushing the responsibility over my own insecurity to others when in fact I should be facing myself and asking myself what it is I am protecting from others and ultimately from myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that insecurity is when I refuse to know myself and thus will not let others know me either because when others would see me I would be forced to see me as well.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define “family” as a safe environment because the people included in “family” already know everything about me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that I cannot let people outside of “family” close to me because “I don't know them” - not realizing that it is actually about them not knowing me and me feeling insecure about myself and how these people will react when they find out all about me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that people will judge and reject who I am and from within that fear regulate what I express of myself to present an appropriate appearance instead of living as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel uncertain about who I am and thus hesitate to show myself as I really am because I fear I will not be accepted by those around me who have not yet shown me how they relate to who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear the people who have not yet seen who I am because I do not know whether they will accept me or not, whereas with “family” I already “know” (assume / trust) that I will be accepted no matter what.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to define the people whose acceptance is uncertain to me as “unsafe” and “not family”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a behavioral pattern of keeping a distance to everyone who I've defined as “unsafe”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to place value on the acceptance of others as a definer of my worth and thus create a desire to have acceptance / a fear of not having acceptance – not realizing that I am making myself completely dependent on the whims of others and thus living as self-neglect instead of embracing myself and gifting myself with self-acceptance, which is all that I actually need to know I am “worthy” - that I am LIFE.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the acceptance or rejection of others does NOT define me unless I use it as an excuse to define myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all definitions are self-definitions – in other words, even if another person would define me through acceptance/rejection, this definition does NOT exist within my subjective experience of life – which is all I've got! - UNLESS I believe the definition and use it myself, which is when I myself direct myself to define myself a certain way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that it does not matter how well I can guess how another will react to who I am, because in the end it is always a guess as people might choose differently depending on a many factors – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to rely on “family” to always accept me, not realizing that one day they may not and then I'd have to carry myself, and that it is thus my responsibility to be able to carry myself even without a “safety net”.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with fear to people who get close to my “personal zone” and that I've limited and suppressed my self-expression accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to create a “personal zone” within which are all the things I feel insecure about and outside of which are all the things I feel secure about, the outside forming my appearance and the inside my hidden self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified to have a “personal zone” within which I can keep things that I do not want anyone to see – not realizing that by doing this I give myself permission to not look at those things either, which is when I neglect myself by not actually knowing myself thoroughly, the “dark” and the “light” side of me alike.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that by letting others see the things I am insecure about I am able to get immeasurably valuable feedback about myself and the sides of me that I do not yet know, and that I am thus doing myself a great service by letting others see my insecurities as they then become insecurities no more; when you shine a light to a shadow all you see is what is actually in the shadow and the shadow itself disappears.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe it is justified for people to have “personal zones” because if others are allowed to have one, so am I, which means that I am safe just as long as I give others the same chance to hide.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to uphold the “personal zones” of others by not approaching the topics that people seem to be uncomfortable with, not realizing that I am actually doing them a disservice.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to exert my discomfort on those who have approached my “personal zone” by getting angry and offended and blaming these people for being “invasive” and “insensitive”, either directly expressing this, talking about them behind their backs or passing blame within my mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not embrace the chance to explore myself and get to know myself when others have approached my “personal zone” aka the sides of me I am insecure about.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to people approaching my “personal zone” by instantly “withdrawing” into a defensive posture where I close myself up so that nothing else would “leak out”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that when I go into this defensive posture mentally I also tense up physically and thus cause damage and strain onto my physical self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to arrogantly believe and perceive that I already fully know who I am, not realizing that this belief/perception itself indicates an approach that will stop me from fully seeing myself.

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When and as I see myself tensing up in the presence of someone I find “unsafe”, trying to present the “good side” of me and hiding my weaknesses – I stop, I breathe and I realize that I am hiding something I myself do not wish to see. I remind myself that there is nothing to fear, because the response/feedback of another is nothing personal and does NOT define me. I stabilize myself in breath and I ask myself: what do I not want the other to see? Why do I not want to see it myself? I locate the tension in my physical body and assist it to relax with breath. I continue with the interaction aware of the fears that are present within me and I keep myself open to opportunities to work on those fears directly with the other.

I commit myself to utilize the self-corrective statement above throughout this day to see what difference it makes in the interactions I have and how it affects my current state of being.

In order to see what difference it makes, I commit myself to face people as if they were my family by asking myself: “what if he/she was my brother/sister/mother/father?”

I commit myself to this experiment as a birthday gift to myself.

Day 235: Get away from me!

16052013

An interesting experience has risen up and I need to now write it out. It is something that has occurred in me in some previous relationships, but my situation now isn't like those, so I can get a fresh perspective on this.

I am traveling in South-Korea, and I am currently staying at the apartment of a person who I connected with at Coucsurfing. I am quite far from the centre of Seoul at a suburban area. He is being very kind to me, and his willingness to “give” his time, effort, money and resources is starting to overwhelm me.

At least in two previous romantic relationships I have gotten this huge overwhelming anxiety and just wanted to escape, and usually I did one way or another. They have been relationships where I have seen that the other is more “into it” than I am – meaning that the other has been more committed to and more invested in the relationship and more eager to spend time with it intensively and even lose themselves in it – whereas I have not really been there, I have not really been interested in the other person, I have not wanted to meet them that often, something in just being with them has made me feel like I'm in the wrong place. I have seen that we are there for different reasons, or that we are “out of sync” - and I have compromised myself in their presence because I have been unable to communicate this, and thus I have rather escaped the person by for example breaking off the relationship.

Alright, yes, that's the problem. In this situation with this host of mine I firstly feel like I am “at his mercy” because I am far away from subway lines and because we came here by car – but here I do not realize that he has told me where all the bus stops are and how I can get to the centre by bus. So this is clearly a misconception. Secondly, I am worried that the fact that he paid for our groceries and is giving me so much of his possessions “means” that he is expecting something from me – the worst-case scenario being sex – when I do not see the fact that he lives alone and is very lonely and is most likely simply happy to have some company. And my company I am happy to share – I've just got to make sure I communicate myself clearly and honestly and take care of my “personal space”, that I don't give my time any more than I actually can. The self-compromise is an issue here.

So, the issue seems to be with not wanting to address another's starting point for his actions because I fear conflict. And as I avoid discussing this I get stuck and compromise myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that I will get stuck in an unknown place, lost and alone, and that no one will help me or understand me – not realizing that I am in the middle of a densely populated area where there is bound to be someone who would/could help me if I asked for it.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not trust myself to be able to survive in case my worst-case scenarios come true.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to build worst-case scenarios “just in case” in order to ensure my survival.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to only see another person through fear and believe the perception I create through fear, not realizing that looking at things through fear distorts things to appear according to my fears – which is not the equivalent of what is actually here.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive the hospitality and generosity of another to be an act of desperation and fear, not realizing that if there is desperation and fear in the other's starting point this may be addressed, and that this starting point still doesn't remove the fact that he is being of tremendous help to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to blame myself and to feel guilty for not being grateful of another's hospitality when I actually have expressed my gratitude, both in words and deeds.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel anxious about another's willingness to spend time with me as I have perceived him to be acting out of desperation and fear, feeling uncomfortable in his presence as I have felt like my personal space or needs are “not considered” - not realizing that I am the one who has to consider myself and that thus I need to express my needs and claim the space that I require – and that this is not “rude” or “impolite” but an act of taking care of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that another will react negatively if I claim my personal space / act according to my needs because I am used to taking it personally if another reacts, and that I have thus avoided claiming my personal space and instead waited around for it to be “given” to me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the reactions of another are not my responsibility.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to feel anxious about another suggesting common activities for my remaining travel time, wanting to “decide for myself” and “make plans by myself” - not realizing that I am anxious and feel limited because I perceive the other to have “power over me” because of my unwillingness to be “impolite” and refuse his offer.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to automatically refuse the suggestion of another because I have created an image of the other as “desperate” and believed this suggestion as well to be “desperate” and “clingy” instead of looking at what the suggestion would actually entail and whether it might actually be something I'd like to do – yet also keeping in mind that if the starting point of the other is fear I am responsible to not participate in order to not support his mind-fucks.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to perceive and believe myself to be “helpless” in front of people who get really excited about spending time with me as I have believed and perceived that I “have to” spend time with them because it makes them so happy – not realizing that I am doing the other a disservice by not questioning their self-consuming actions.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not be OK with my host's generosity because I come from a culture of a different kind of expressing hospitality than this one.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear fully opening myself in my host's presence because I have feared that this will be misunderstood as “romantic interest” as it often has been, as it is not common for people to be open with each other and face each other without fear and thus those who are fearless are often clung onto because they “shine” in the middle of everyone else – not realizing that misunderstandings can be solved by addressing them immediately when they occur.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear looking my host directly in the eye because I have feared that this fearlessness will be misinterpreted as “romantic interest”.

I commit myself to have my well-being as a priority as I see, realize and understand that I am responsible of myself only – not of other fully adult human beings.

I commit myself to trust myself to be able to find a way to survive as I see, realize and understand that I am surrounded by beings just like me on a planet that is of the one and same matter no matter where I go.

When and as I face a conflict with another person, I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that this being is one with and equal to me – that we are the one and same – and I place myself “in the shoes” of the other. I see myself in the other and ask myself what it is I need. I place the other within myself and ask myself what I am not accepting. I then find a solution based on this self-honest assessment.

I commit myself to push through my fear of being open with another by breathing and relaxing my body and physically opening myself up within and as the realization that if there are misunderstandings they can be solved.

I commit myself to not accept and allow signs of misunderstandings to slip by and to address them immediately when they occur in order to not accumulate misunderstandings even further.

I commit myself to reconsider my host's suggestions without fear and prejudice.